


When We Sat in Silence

by Wishopenastar



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: AFTG Reverse Big Bang 2019, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Royalty, F/F, Family, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Marriage, Muslim Character, Neil Josten is a swan, No Smut, Non-Graphic Violence, Original Character(s), Panic Attacks, Past Rape/Non-con, Six Swans AU, fairy tale AU, prince jeremy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2019-11-08 19:36:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17987330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wishopenastar/pseuds/Wishopenastar
Summary: When Jean's family is turned into swans by a spiteful Riko Moriyama, it is up to him to get them to become human again by knitting six jackets out of nettle in a year. The only problem? He can not make any sound throughout the year.(A Six Swans AU, featuring the foxes as swans, A silent Jean, Prince Jeremy and fifteen minute lovers' trysts)





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LavenderJane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LavenderJane/gifts).



> It's finally time to post! This is my piece for the AFTG Reverse Big Bang, A Six Swans JereJean retelling for Gabriella's wonderful art.  
> I had a great time writing this but it's only thanks to the Rbb discord chat that it got done.  
> Special thanks toDeyaAmaya,  
>  Anna,   
> Gluupor  and [ IKnowWhoYouAre_Damianos.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IKnowWhoYouAre_Damianos/pseuds/IKnowWhoYouAre_Damianos)  
> And to Lex the beta extraordinaire who put in commas and em dashes.  
> Hope y'all like it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I love Jean Moreau. Like Ichirou. And Riko is a little shit whom I'd love to strangle. What else is new?  
> TW for past abuse. 
> 
> Tell me if I need to add anything.

PART ONE

  
Jean had learned early on that people can betray you. That it hurts much worse when it is people who are supposed to have your back. People who are supposed to protect you, people whom you would die for. He learned early on to not buy into the blood is thicker than water nonsense.  
  
  
  
But he now had a family. Family, family. He repeated the word in his head when he woke up from nightmares about his childhood, and Dan and Matt stayed up at nights with him till the sky turned light and the birds began to chirp. He repeated the word in his head when fears about being unloved crawled into his mind, when Renee taught him how to defend himself with her own knives, when Nicky sometimes collapsed in tears on Jean’s shoulder. When Neil told them about his father’s cruelty and the injuries on his body which came as a result of it, and when he and Kevin reminisced about their childhood together while on long rides on their horses. Family, family.  
  
***  
He had people who loved him, people who saw beyond his scars and flinches. People he loved, people for whom he would do anything, people who would do just as much for him.  
***  
It made Dan’s heart beat with fierce pride when she thought about how far they had all come. Life hadn’t been easy on any of them. They all had hurt inside them. Different kinds of hurt, different scars, but they were healing slowly. And Renee always said that scars were proof of God healing you.  
***  
Neil never understood why Kevin, a woodcarver, needed to read up so much about the land and its history. And he understood even less why Kevin needed to tell all of it to him--especially over the breakfast table. But he bore it heroically, he thought. He wished that Jean were here. He was the only person to whom Kevin actually listened. And he took pity on Neil most of the time and engaged Kevin in conversation about any other topic, but today he was in the palace on duty as a member of the King’s guard.  
***  
Riko was in his suite when the guard came in. “Your Highness, the King has commanded your presence in his chambers.”  


Riko’s relationship with his brother was complicated to say the least. He held Ichirou in the highest respect which his position and personality both commanded, but at the same time, Riko hated him. He was everything Riko wasn’t and never would be. Ichirou was raised to be the king, to enthrall people, to give commands with the knowledge that they would be carried out.  
  
What Riko hated the most, though, was how Ichirou never trusted him with anything of importance. He showed more trust in his guards than he did in Riko.  
***

Ichirou didn't get along with his brother. He never got along with anyone really, but his brother stood out among those people because brothers were supposed to get along. But Ichirou had never been good at doing what people expected of him. He was not an orthodox ruler. Taking the reins from King Kengo Moriyama and fixing the fractured kingdom he had left had not been easy. Ichirou grew older than his years doing it, and if it taught him one thing it was to be aware of the people who could betray you. Riko topped the list. His brother was stupid but he was also a prince, second in line to the throne. It would be easy for him to conveniently dispose of Ichirou if he used some cunning. Even from where he was, Ichirou could see entirely too many cracks. You could call him paranoid, but really, who isn’t when it comes to their lives and a kingdom they have worked so hard for?

And so he called Riko to him.

***

His majesty had asked Jean to enter along with Riko when he came. Jean entered the King's chambers and took his position along with another guard, Muldani, at the door. He heard only snatches of the conversation but he could and did understand the tone it was being held in. Ichirou was firm and calm as usual and Riko’s voice was filled with anger, as usual.

“Then take up your sword, Riko,” Jean heard. Was Ichirou going to duel Riko? Riko was extremely good with the sword, having learnt from their uncle Tetsuji. His older brother was much better though. Riko tended to let his anger think for him. Was Riko really going to do this? He would regret it. “Not me, brother. I shall not be against you. It wouldn't be fair then, would it?” Ichirou asked.”Moreau will be the one duelling you.” Ichirou turned and gestured to Jean.

Jean walked closer to them and kneeled  in front of Ichirou. “Your Majesty, it would be an honour.”

The king turned to his brother, “Outside, then. Come to the the training hall in an hour”

***

Riko had a complex relationship with his brother.

***

Going against Riko in a swordfight was like going against a hurricane. The best way to survive is to bide your time until it's over. Living with a mother whose anger was like a hurricane had taught Jean that. And so he bade his time. He ducked and dodged and blocked. Riko didn't give him any openings. At first. Then Riko started working offence more than defence. He got sloppy. Jean took the chance. He disarmed Riko.

***

Ichirou watched them fighting. His best with his kin. He had known who would win, wouldn't have called it otherwise, but it felt good to be proved right. His brother was on the ground while Jean remained standing. Ichirou called an end to the fight.

***

Riko was furious. He was furious as he watched his ‘brother’ commend the guard, Moreau, by name, on a fight well fought. He was furious as he went into his chambers and wrote a letter. He was furious as he sneaked out in the night to visit the recipient of said letter, but he wasn't furious when he actually entered the man's presence.

***

There is something calming about vindication, a calm which can't be achieved by anything but revenge for the wrongs which have been committed against you. Riko sought out this calm when he went to his uncle Tetsuji. Tetsuji was much like him. A second child. No one very important. Drowning in jealousy. He had been exiled by his father for practicing black magic and killing several of the subjects in his quest for betterment in his craft of evil. Tetsuji now held a place in the court of a kingdom farther south. He had a new name, a new king. But once you have known the intoxicating power that is black magic, it never leaves you. He still brewed the occasional potion.

***

Jean couldn't shake off the feeling that someone was watching him as he returned to his home at the end of the week.

***

When you love someone you become weak. It was easy enough for Tetsuji to find out whom the guard loved--it just took getting the man followed up to his home.

 

It is easy to hurt a person when they give their heart out to others. Broken people can bear to be hurt themselves, but can't bear to see the people who have healed them in pain. Riko asked Tetsuji to hurt Jean. The best way go about it would be to harm those people Jean treasured beyond his own life.

 

They were too many, though. And Tetsuji was out of practice.

 

***

Dan always knew that the family's greatest strength was their united front. Their ability to hold each other up and sacrifice everything each other.

She was right.

***

Riko was stewing at his window when he saw the bird coming. It had something in its claws. ‘Tetsuji,’ he thought. As it approached he saw that the bird was a raven. It had a pouch and a scroll tied to its feet. It cawed as it landed on his windowsill, and as soon as Riko took the message and the pouch from it, it vanished in a flurry of dark feathers.

 

***

The pouch had a powder in it. The scroll had advice regarding how to use it. Tetsuji told him to ensure that Jean’s family ingested the powder in any form and the poison would do the rest.

***

There was a young man in the woods where Abby went to collect water from the stream. He was wearing a cloak that covered his face in shadow. He didn't acknowledge Abby when they crossed paths. Abby couldn't recognise him as a part of any of the families that lived there in the forest nor did he have the look of a traveller just passing by. He was a man with intention. Abby felt unsettled.

 

When she reached her cottage, she asked her husband if he had seen any strangers while hunting. He had not.

***

Shoddy gut feelings do not make good witches. Wymack kept his eyes open as he went out to collect water and a few herbs for his wife that evening.

Abby worked on a dreamless sleep drought for the woman Danielle who lived nearby. Apparently all of her family was prone to nightmares.

***

 

Riko found Moreau's cottage without a lot of looking. It even had a back entrance into the kitchen. Riko pulled his hood up and knocked.

***

Dan was cooking when someone knocked outside. Renee, who had come over to spend the night with them, went to get the door. She could hear her pleasant but guarded tone over the crackle of the fire. She came back and said that there was a strange man outside who seemed to have lost his way.

***

When Riko knocked a young woman answered the door. She invited him inside on hearing about how he had been walking for a long time and how hungry he was. There were a lot of people in the cottage, he noticed. Another woman stepped away from the kitchen fire.

She was beautiful in the way the dark skinned women of the south were.

“Hello, I'm Mrs. Boyd. Renee said you missed the path?”

“Ah, yes. I need to get to the capital.”

“It's dark outside and it's a long walk there. Would you like to sup with us before my husband takes you to the crossing?”

How gullible people could be. Better for him though.

“Thank you. Your hospitality is very much appreciated.”

“You must be cold. Warm yourself by our fire.” Saying this she turned and left, probably to talk to the aforementioned husband. She left the cooking pit alone as it stewed on the crackling fire.

Riko took the opportunity to slip in the powder and then left.

***

No one was there when Renee returned to the kitchen . The man had gone away. She went outside to check where he might have gone but found nothing. Odd.

But Nicky called her inside to eat so she went in.

***

Nicky started the grace. It reminded him of his childhood, something he wished desperately to forget yet never could. He couldn't escape thinking about his parent's God when he prayed to his own. Their Lord was vindictive. He punished people who did wrong. Renee's God was forgiving. He helped people. So was Nicky’s and Erik’s.

 

Nicky remembered how much things had changed from when he had first been cast out of his house because of his love for Erik. His parents might have forgiven Erik for being a man and unable to produce an heir, but they couldn't forgive him for the poverty he had come from.

 

Nicky’s found family never forgave him either. They saw nothing to forgive. They didn't see any wrongs where there weren't any, and this was what he thanked the Lord for every night.

 

That's what he thanked the Lord for today for their continued togetherness. And for the food, of course.

 

The soup tasted strange. It wasn't bad, just different from what he was used to from Dan. Matt thought so, too. He asked his wife if she had put in something new today, but she said she hadn't.

 

***

Abby went to deliver the potion to Danielle when it was done the next morning. She could feel that something was wrong, could feel it since the previous night, since the evening when she had seen that man. But he had left for the forest. She wondered what was causing that prickle on her neck right now.

Abby knocked on the door of Danielle's kitchen but no one answered. She could hear a strange shuffling coming from inside the house. She went to the front door and knocked again. No answer. The sound seemed to be a scuffle of several feet.

Abby checked the door. It was unchained. She stepped inside and was met by a scene that did not make any sense. There were swans in the entrance. A lot of them. How they came to be here Abby couldn't tell, but as she walked inside the house she counted six of them.

Abby went to the dining room. There were several upturned bowls on the floor and on the table, all had been holding the same soup inside them. A mounting sense of fear overcame her. She smelled some of the soup splattered on the table. It had a strange sickly sweet odour. The smell and the swans gave away the identity of the potion: cantatus factorem. She realised who the swans were, ran outside, and rushed to her home.

Abby’s cupboards were usually stocked with at least one antidote to transformation potions. She hoped it would suffice. She found the vial and took her bewildered husband back to the hut with her.

He let out several expletives when she explained what had happened as they worked to shepherd the swans into a single room so that Abby could administer her potion.

 

Abby had too little of it. And while most of the swans seemed to recognise her and let her put a few drops in without much struggle, one swan kept running away from her. Vincent had to tackle it to allow Abby to dose it, But they did it.

“Now what?” he asked her.

“Now we wait. I'll stay with them while you go and fetch the guard and tell him what has happened.”

***

Jean was on his break when he was called to his supervisor’s office. He had no idea why he would be called there and prayed everything was fine. Inside Jean saw his neighbour, Mr. Wymack, pacing.

***

As soon as Wymack saw Jean, he started to talk about how his brother had fallen extremely ill and how he was needed at home immediately. Jean felt sick himself. He wanted to throw up. Nothing would happen to Neil. That would be too cruel.

***

Wymack waited while Jean sorted things out with Hayden. After, they walked towards the stables so that they would be able to take their horses, and then his neighbour started talking.

“Your brother is not ill.” Relief poured through Jean. Then he saw the expression on Wymacks face. Dread washed out the relief. “I don't know how to put this. Abby will explain this better, but someone turned your family into swans.”

Jean could see that Wymack wasn't kidding, but still his words sounded too implausible to be what he had actually said. Jean must have misheard.

“I'm sorry?” he requested.

Wymack explained the situation as well he understood it. A stranger in the forest. Dan's soup. A potion. Jean’s head spun.

Jean saddled his horse and was about to get on when Wymack stopped him, crouched behind the door, and gestured towards someone just coming in.

It was Riko.

“Moreau.” The inflection of Riko’s voice was too knowing and boastful of that knowledge.

“Your highness.” Jean bowed down to the Prince.

Riko had disliked Jean since the day of the duel. He could never shake off the feeling that Riko was planning vengeance behind the smooth smiles and deference he made to his brother.

Having been a part of Riko’s humiliation, Jean remained on guard. Everyone knew about Riko’s tendency to lash out indiscriminately when he was angry.

 

Now, hearing his voice. Remembering Wymack’s words. Stranger. Your family. Swans. Jean realised just how badly he wanted to get his sword on Riko’s throat. He almost stepped out, but Waymack grabbed at the hem of his coat from where he was crouched down and stopped him.  

 

He watched Riko to take his horse out. After he left, Wymack stood up and said, “He was there. He's the one who did it.”

“I know.”

***

Abby sat near the hearth and waited for Jean and her husband to come back. She prayed that her antidote would take effect.

Abby had closed the doors to the room so that the swans wouldn't get out and she tried to guess which one was whom as they milled about. They were mostly like normal swans but their eyes and their mannerisms gave them away.

 

The one trying to open the door would be the youngest one, Neil. His swan form had his eyes, a brilliant, sharp blue. Danielle had once told Abby that Neil never liked anyone complimenting him on his eyes. For him, they were a reminder of his father and a life he had escaped from. But anyone who saw them and was perceptive would be able to note their sharpness and understand the life which caused it.

 

There was a gray eyed swan who seemed to be Renee, a family friend who often spent her nights with the family. Abby went to church with her and Nicky every Sunday. Nicky would be the swan next to her she seemed to talk to in small hisses.

 

The mated pair in the other corner of the room would be Dan and Matthew. They were holding a conversation of small touches with their necks and beaks.

Kevin would be the swan sitting on the cabinet.

Abby remembered that they hadn’t been fed properly and so she went into the kitchen and cut lettuce for them.

They came towards her and snorted at her as she put the food on the floor. They ate together.

***

The sun climbed down the sky as Jean and Wymack rode through the forest.

Abby was waiting for them inside.

As Jean entered, the swans came towards him and started nuzzling their heads at his feet. His family recognised him.

He turned towards Abby. “Will they be alright?” They had to be. He would do anything to make sure they would be.

“I’ve given a temporary antidote to them. They should be coming back to their bodies anytime now.”

Temporary. “They'll go back to being swans?”

“Yes. The spell used in making this potion is very complicated. The antidote can’t fully reverse its effect.”

“There has to be a way.”

“There is a way, but it's not easy.”

“I don't care about that.”

“This potion is black magic. Very few things can successfully counter such magic. One of them is love, which you'll have to use to to turn them human again.”

“Love?”

“You'll have to perform a task of love for each of them.”

“What do I need to do?”

“You need to knit a shirt for each of them, out of nettles, using only your hands. You can't talk or laugh while you do this. A word from you will doom your family.”

“I will do it.”

“Jean, You've got only one year to do this. After that, this will become permanent. They will remain swans.”

Jean was afraid that he would mess it up, but he knew that he had to do this. It would be his way of repaying the thousand kindnesses given to him by his family.

****

It was fifteen minutes to sunset when they turned human again. They transformed together.

***

Kevin felt dizzy as he changed from his swan form. He had been sitting on a cabinet. He and the cabinet both fell with a crash. Jean came to him to help him up, just like back when they had been neighbours.

“What happened?”

“You were turned into swans by Riko”

Jean saw the understanding dawn upon Kevin's face.

“Riko was the man?”

“Yes.”

***

Renee watched the family come together as Jean gave them an idea of what had happened. They had become swans due to a potion that the stranger, Prince Riko Moriyama, had put in their food. They would turn human for fifteen minutes before sunset everyday. Jean told them about the nettle shirts he would have to make and the vow of silence he would have to keep.

 

As the sun set, they pulled each other into a hug.

***

Abby taught Jean how to make thread and how to use his hands to knit it. Then he and Abby decided that he should leave to some other kingdom where the influence of the prince wouldn't stretch as far.

 

***

They travelled towards the South, Jean on a horse, the swans walking or flying. Getting out of the kingdom was slow going since he didn't want to be too conspicuous. The swans would make their group too noticeable. Each evening, they set camp in a barn or another such safe place they could find.

 

***

Once they reached their nearest neighbourhood kingdom, they stopped by a pond. Jean and the swans had developed a routine by now. The swans would go to any nearest source of water they found or go looking for food but nowhere Jean couldn't call them.

Before they turned back in the evening, Jean would work to create some sort of shelter for himself to sleep in and look for food in the form of berries or small animals. When they transformed they would talk to each other. Jean savored every word that he got to speak now.

Jean would sing sometimes. Songs he had heard Dan, Renee, and even Kevin singing at their work.

But the routine was going to change now. Jean had started coming across more and more growths of nettle these days and he realised that he would have to start working soon.

He would have to discuss it with his family once they transformed that evening.

***

“I need to start knitting now. I'm thinking that we should set up a more permanent shelter here.” Dan heard Jean say as she roasted a rabbit that Jean had caught.

 

“I like this pond. It's not very frequented and it will sustain us for some time. So yes.” Matt replied.

***

They started work on the shelter the next day before sunset. Jean had gotten a lot of sticks ready and Matt, Kevin, and Nicky got reeds from the water. The girls tied them up to form a wall-like structure and, along with Jean, erected it into a hut-like building. Long grass was laid above it as a sort of roof. The work took them three days but they did it.

***

Jean woke up early the next morning to start making the threads. He went over to an accumulation of nettles and held it at the branch part as Abby had told him to.

Immediately his hands started to sting, he dropped the stem but no word escaped his lips. He picked it up again. Crushed it in a fist. It didn't lessen the sting from earlier but at least it brought no new pain.

He collected a lot of such stems, forming them into bundles tying them up with reeds from the pond. By the time the swans were to transform back his hands had blisters.

 

***

As soon as Renee became human she went around the pond in search of the dock. It was the plant which her mother had taught her to put on someone's hands if they came to touch any stinging nettles. Dan joined her in her search.

They found them and Renee took them to Jean with her. He was still working on the sweaters as the men went to collect food.

***

Renee was an easy person to fall in love with, Jean thought as she worked with some herbs to soothe his blistered hands. Jean knew that first hand. He knew her kindness and strength, how her grey eyes and calm face could draw one in. How beautiful the vividness she held inside her felt when it was focused on you. They weren't in love anymore but she still was his greatest source of comfort along with Kevin. They were wildly different people but they had a very similar effect on any worry he took to them.

***

As Neil was about to turn into a swan he looked around at all the people he called his family. Renee with Jean, Dan and Matt comforting each other and Kevin talking to Nicky, probably about some absurd thing he knew about the wood of the tree they had been sitting against.

He was very grateful to have them. He was still figuring out his place among them and in the world, but his family waited for him with patience.

  



	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeremy finally meets Jean! There's a lot of sitting around in silence and maybe leading to trust. Andrew makes a swan friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This cahpter is significantly longer than the previous one.  
> Also you finally get to see some of Gabriella's art.  
> Let me know what you think.

PART TWO

 

Jeremy didn't like the hunting trips that Lord Tetsuji organised. He would much rather remain at home, maybe sit and read, or just go riding with his companions rather than deal with Tetsuji. He was all smooth talk and compliments sometimes but Jeremy and his Uncle Abdul Rehman had both talked about how something about him came off as wrong. But Abdul Rehman insisted on his going on this trip as it would help the king’s relations with the kingdom’s  lords.

 

So Jeremy dragged his advisor Andrew Minyard along with him. If he had to suffer in Tetsuji’s company, he wouldn't do it alone. They rode the entire day and no one caught anything to show for it. They were tired and thirsty when Tetsuji suggested–in his first good idea of the day–that they stop at a pond nearby.

Jeremy reached the pond and went with two guards to drink water. There was a beautiful swan paddling on the water.

***

As they reached the pond, one of the guards pointed out a temporary shelter built on its edge as if someone was living there. Tetsuji was more interested in the swan that was in the water, though. He raised his arrow to aim at the bird.

***

Andrew watched Tetsuji aim at the bird when suddenly another swan came in front of the Lord and started hissing. It spread its wings and tried to appear as threatening as it could. It almost worked. Tetsuji's horse took a few steps back till the man remembered he had a bow and arrow in his hands and simply changed his aim. The swan was undeterred, even by the threat and it continued hissing and flapping its wings.

 

 _Martyr_ , Andrew thought.

 

The swan the martyr was trying to protect took flight. Tetsuji let go of the arrow. The swan flew away in time but then five other swans came to the ground in front of Tetsuji’s horse. As Tetsuji aimed another arrow, Andrew wondered if all these swans were extremely brave or just dumb.

***

Jeremy and his guards turned at the commotion coming from the other side of the pond where Andrew was waiting for them. Jeremy wasn't sure if he should be scared for Tetsuji or laugh at the terrified expression on his face as he was being attacked by swans.

***

Jean was in the growth behind the pond looking for food when he heard the sounds. A horse was whinnying somewhere in terror. Jean could hear some man's voice and a lot of swan sounds. From the time Jean had spent around his family in swan form he understood that they were terrified and fighting. _“_ Hunters”’ flashed across his mind and he ran towards the clearing.

***

Jeremy wanted to stop the men from letting go of the arrow, but before he could signal to Tetsuji a man came running into the clearing and went to stand right in front of Tetsuji and his arrow. The stranger didn't speak a word just stood there with his arms extended.

***

This was getting ridiculous. The man in front of him was looking at Tetsuji like he was trying to murder the man's family. Oh. Oh. He understood what was wrong now. Why the swans felt so familiar. They were his swans. Which meant this man was the guard Riko wanted revenge on.

Jean Moreau.

***

Jeremy saw Tetsuji lowering his bow. He got on his horse and rode to the other side of the pond to face the stranger.

***

Jean was glad that he had heard the sounds. He wouldn't have been able to forgive himself if his mistakes caused his family any more than they had already done. Now that he was calmer and could properly see things, he saw that the man who had been trying to shoot swan Nicky looked a lot like Riko. Too much. A gasp almost escaped him.

***

Jeremy saw the man properly as he got closer. The first thing he noticed were the man's hands which he still held up. They were injured and blistered. He then noticed the man's face. It was, to put it shortly, _beautiful_. The man had scars on his face too. Small nicks and scratches, but they just enhanced the aura of strength he gave off. Jeremy had never felt so smitten with any person as quickly as he did with this man.

***

The man who had come to face Jean had a circlet on his golden hair. The Prince. Jean recognised him from a delegation visit his Uncle Rehman the king had made earlier. He bowed down.

***

Andrew could see the look in Jeremy’s eyes the sort of smitten look which indicated trouble. Andrew had learnt as a child of eight that no person was worthy of that look. They would just end up hurting you. He forced his mind to stop thinking of his _stepmother_ and focused on the problem at hand. Jeremy was currently asking questions to the man without getting any answers at all.

***

“May I know your name?” Jeremy asked in the language of his court - the man shook his head.

“May I know your name?” he asked in the local dialect. Again the man shook his head.

“May I know your name?” he asked in the language of the neighbouring kingdom. Another head shake.

***

So the guard was trying to break the curse. Tetsuji wondered where he had gotten this method.The person who gave it to him must have been endlessly optimistic. No one had ever broken that curse before.

“He can't speak.” Tetsuji said.

***

“You can't speak?” Jeremy asked and the man nodded.

“Are these swans yours?” Again, he received a nod.

“We've got better keeps for birds in the capital. Would you like to join us there?”

He got no reaction for some time. The man turned away from him and crouched down in front of his swans, facing them. Even Jeremy who had never taken care of any kind of swans before knew how aggressive they could be and thus how much of an act of trust in the birds the man coming down to the swans’ biting level was.

***

Jean didn't know what the Prince was playing at, asking him to come to the capital. He was an adequate reader of people and could sense falseness easily. This man wasn't lying. Then what did he want? Jean wondered. He knew he had turned his back to a prince and probably some nobility and that he was keeping them waiting, but he needed to think deeply about what he should do. Going would mean getting food and safety for his family, along with higher risk of getting discovered. Winter would be coming  soon, and going to the capitol would mean warmth. Jean needed more time. He needed to discuss it with his family when they were humans.

He stood and turned towards the men.

“Well?” The prince asked.

Jean raised one finger. He made a motion of his hands which he hoped indicated a clock moving its hands in a circle.

“One day?”

Jean nodded.

“You want a day to consider.”

***

As the party turned and rode towards camp, Tetsuji wondered what the guard would choose. Tetsuji’s job had been finished when he sent his raven, but incomplete tales can annoy you sometimes with all their what ifs and possibilities. Well, Tetsuji would be easily able to spoil the man's efforts to bring his family back no matter what he chose. After all, how difficult could making someone talk be?

***

Andrew was in charge of making sure his ~~friend~~ charge didn’t get himself killed by falling in love with strangers. And the best way to do that would be to make sure he didn't invite lunatic men to live in the palace with him.

 

“This is not something you should do, Jeremy. I know that the man is intriguing but some mysteries should remain unsolved.” Andrew felt like a damn hypocrite for saying that. He never let mysteries go. But he had to try.

“I want to help him. He is struggling and the winter is coming.” God, Jeremy was so good, so pure and convinced of the goodness in others. Even with all the horror stories he had heard.

“Yes. But he has survived all these years without you taking care of swans while at it. You have taken entirely too many people under your protection.”

“I have you under my protection.”

Andrew was paying a life debt he had to the Prince. He wasn't lolling around in the safety. “You saved my life by trusting me, Jeremy. I'm safeguarding you for it. You don't protect me.” He was lying again on this one; the Prince did give him protection. Protection from his physical nightmares. His stepbrother Drake Spear could not get to Andrew as he was dead but the damage had already been done;

no one could really protect him from his mind.

Jeremy sighed.

******

Jean worked as he waited for his family to transform back. He was still only cutting the nettles for the first jacket. It was tedious work especially since he was using his sword to do it instead of garden shears.

As the swans turned human around him everyone turned to Nicky who was crying on the ground.  

Renee rubbed circles on his back as she comforted him  “Hey, Nicky hush. Everything is alright. You're safe. We're all still together.”

Sobs still wrecked through him.

“Nicky.. Nicky.. Listen to me. You're here, we're here.”

Jean got down and bent in front of his brother. He took both of Nicky’s hands pressing them between his own hands. He sat down beside Nicky, their hands still entwined. Jean had never been good with physically comforting people but he knew how good it felt from having received it.

“We could have gotten killed, Jean.”

***

Neil watched the scene unfold in front of him. He could understand Nicky's fear. But he also understood one vital thing. They would always be there for each other, protect each other and come through.

***

Kevin was sitting on a boulder with a piece of wood in his hands and the small blade he always had in his pocket. Matt used to joke that one day he would forget to sheath it and it would kill him in his sleep. But it was coming in useful today.

 

Kevin was afraid of being unable to do things. His entire life he had been doing things to keep the demons out–if he didn't do it his drinking started again. It had been very difficult to end it. But he was nothing if not determined.

 

Matt had told him to try wood carving. “Keep your hands occupied and mind focused” he had said. He had given Kevin his tools when Kevin and Jean had first come running away from the town and sought refuge in a cheerful cottage for a few hours which turned to days and which turned to months until one day sitting at the first dinner table he had good memories of he realised that he and Jean had both become a unquestioned part of the family.

Kevin remembered the first days after getting his tools, he used to sit somewhere where there was nobody and whittle the wood till it was well past the time he should have gone to sleep. He remembered the red marks that formed in his hands from holding so tightly onto his knives. The balms which Renee, a healer’s daughter whom Jean was then  courting, used to bring him for his hands.

 

He was working on a whistle for Jean so that he could call them when they were in danger as swans.

***

Jean hated seeing this side of Nicky and not being able to say anything. He wanted to tell Nicky that he would get them out of this mess, that Abby's remedy was going to work, that he wouldn't give up. But for now he just held Nicky's hands in his and made up his mind.

***

Kevin gave Jean the whistle he had made. It was a shoddily done but it worked when Jean blew on it.  Jean gave him a small smile and a hug in return. He let his weight lie on Kevin for sometime, conveying without words how tired he was.

***

Neil saw Jean and Kevin be like rocks for each other. He wanted someone like that too. His family gave him a lot, but he still felt like he pretended, kept the worst inside him. He wanted someone who would look at all the scars his father's meat knife had inflicted and not pity him. Neil wanted unquestioned acceptance of not only his weaknesses, but also the darkness that sometimes overcame him.

***

They rode to the pond the next day. Andrew had tried to dissuade Jeremy but it hadn't worked.

The man was still there but he was bent over a bush. Andrew saw that it was nettles.

“They sting you, you know,” Jeremy called out as a greeting. Of course the man would know. He had a lot if them in his bare hands. Talk about stupidity.

***

“So, what did you choose? Are you joining us?”

Jeremy hoped that the man would agree. He was enamoured with him. The man nodded.

***

Jean watched the prince’s face light up with a beautiful smile that reached his eyes.  The man asked him if he was alright with sharing a horse with him. He assented and found himself pulled up on a horse behind the prince.

The party rode on.

Jean had  told his family about the plan the last evening and they followed flying above the horses. Jean wondered what they could understand.

***

Swan Neil was flying above in the sky. He didn't know why he was flying or why he was following the yellow head but he knew that it was important. Just as he had known that it was important to try and stop the old man from letting his arrow fly on another swan and just as he had known that the quiet man would protect him.

***

They reached the castle in a few hours of riding. The swans had followed them all the way. Tetsuji had hoped that they would give up but it didn't happen.

As they reached the gates, the prince turned to a  guard riding near him and told him to ride on ahead and inform the servants to prepare rooms for Moreau.

Moreau's eyes got wide. He gestured towards the swans.

“They can stay in the geese pens. They will be well taken care of. Don't worry.”

Tetsuji saw Moreau open his mouth to argue and then promptly shut it. It was going to be easy to make him break his silence.

Moreau waited till they reached the stables and as soon as he got down from the horse and went to his swans who had landed.

***

Andrew watched as the man acted more and more absurdly. He was hugging his swans. One of the swans he had hugged took his sleeve in its beak and started pulling him. All the swans followed.

They reached the lake. All of the swans immediately got into the water except for the one who had guided the party. It waddled on ahead till they reached the hut nearby which the previous groundsmaster had occupied.

***

If Jean let the Prince make him sleep in the palace, they would all be discovered. His swans already were conspicuous enough as it was, but swans that turned human for some time every evening might get them killed. He was sorely regretting taking up the Prince’s offer when swan Dan dragged him to a hut by the pond.

He saw possibilities in that hut. It was big enough for him and his six swans, and the pond had a lot of nettles growing near it. He just needed to convince the prince to let him have it.

***

Jeremy saw the man ogling the hut. He wondered what he would say about the palace.

“Come I'll show you inside”

The man shook his head and gestured towards the hut.

“The rooms we've had prepared for you are better.”

The man still insisted on the hut. Of course he would feel much more comfortable in an atmosphere closer to his home.

“You want to live in this house?”

The man nodded and smiled at Jeremy on that.

“Alright. I'll have it prepared. Your swans?”

The man gestured towards his swans and towards the hut.

“You're going to live with them.”

Again that smile. Jeremy felt as if it was a reward for reading the man's unspoken words and what a reward it was.

***

Andrew watched the scene unfold in front of him. He wanted to say something but the man wasn't doing anything wrong.

***

Sometime after Jean had settled inside the groundskeeper’s cottage and the Prince and his friend had left, his family transformed back.They watched the new place they were in.

Matt stoked the fire while Dan sat and made some rules about how they were going to keep from being discovered.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door. They all startled. His family went to an inside room to hide as Jean went to open the door.

The short blonde friend of the prince was outside with a dish of food in his hand. He glared at Jean.

“His Highness sent me to do something about your hands and give you food.”

His voice was different from when he had spoken on the ride earlier. It was less raspy now and had a bit more expression in it.

Jean took the food from him and placed it on the table. Even doing this much hurt his hands.

The blonde let out a sound of annoyance and took out a kit from the satchel on his hips. He made Jean sit on the table and started to wrap bandages around his hands tightly. Jean watched his deft movements. When there was another knock the man went to check but when he entered he was alone.

“Must have been the wind.” He said and went back to working on the bandages.

“Where are your swans?” he asked Jean. Jean prayed that the quarter hour had elapsed. He shrugged.

“I'm Aaron.”

****

Andrew watched the man carefully as he took Aaron's place in bandaging him. He was once again thankful about their resemblance and the inability of the court to understand who was who if they switched clothes.

 

Something was wrong about the way he behaved. He didn't signal things as if he had had a lifetime of developing gestures to substitute for his lack of speech. He gestured as if he had a bad throat and had been unable to speak since some days. His swans were more intelligent than any which Andrew had seen before, and they were suspiciously well behaved too.

***

As Andrew left to see the swan man, Jeremy went to his uncle to talk about the trip. He entered the study and kissed his uncle on his beard as had been his habit since childhood.

His uncle looked up at him and gave a tired smile.

“I trust the trip was as usual?”  As usual meant terrible.

“We didn't get much hunting done but I think Tetsuji is going to be less stubborn on the agriculture issue now. Though we will only know when the negotiations are done. He is a tiring person.”

His uncle gave him a proud look.

*****

Abdul Rehman was regretting his decision to put Tetsuji on his council. He sometimes wondered why he had done it. But he was working towards finding reasons to make him step down.  He had the general idea of a thousand minor infractions which the old man had committed. But he had no concrete evidence so he couldn't do anything. When his brother had been King and he just an observer, it had all seemed so much easier. But he put thoughts of Tetsuji out of his mind for now and addressed another big issue.“You've taken in a stranger.” News flew easily in the palace. Abdul Rehman was used to his nephew taking too much pity on strangers by now. When he was a child he used to give all of his allowance to any person he felt needed it.

“Yes, Uncle Abdi.”

Was Jeremy really flushing?

***

Jeremy's uncle drilled him about the man with the swans for a long time. Jeremy just sat and answered questions. He was immensely thankful when his father reverted back to talk of politics.

Jeremy then went to visit his aunt. His aunt was the most serene woman Jeremy had ever met. She was the person who had held his shaking body when his parents died. The person who knew about all the doubts he held inside himself. The person who prayed for him, who had sung Urdu lullabies to him. Jeremy loved her.

They had tea together.

****

As soon as the blonde man, Aaron, left, Jean went out to collect nettles and start his work again. He worked late into the night by the fire, stripping the bark from the nettles and dividing them into thin strips. The work was tedious and his aching hands caused him to break many of the strings which came off but he continued undeterred. It gave him satisfaction to see the pile beside him grow.

****

In the grand scheme of things, the fact that most people made friends with him to get a better position in the court didn't matter very much to Jeremy. He had true friends who thought of him not as their prince but as an individual apart from his crown. Alvarez, Laila, and Andrew were all people who loved him.

But it did matter to him that people courted him for his wealth and the power he would inherit.

He wanted love, craved it. The kind of love which his Rehman shared with Razia, the kind of love which had made him accept a faith and a God. He craved the love that Laila shared with Sara. All those unselfish touches and sweet gestures. He didn't think he would ever get it though.

***

Jean sat on the steps of the cottage and worked, entwining the first batch of nettle bark he had stripped to make thread suitable for knitting. A figure approached him. It was the prince.

The prince came and sat beside him on the stone, leaning back against the door. He watched Jean without saying a word for quite some time. It was astonishingly not awkward. Their silences fit together. Jean could feel the the prince’s body radiate warmth. When the prince stood and left, Jean missed it.

***

“How'd the silent wooing of the Silent Man go?” asked Sara Alvarez, the supposedly dignified courtesan and Jeremy's oldest friend. She was perched on her wife's lap in Jeremys sitting room.

“I'm not wooing him.”

“Having a room prepared for a random stranger near your bedroom in your childhood home is dangerously close to wooing, Jer.” Laila interjected.

“He's not using those rooms so what does it matter anyways?” He sounded pathetic even to himself.

“Well, it creates talk in the court. You are prime gossip fodder and those cats of court women can spin any tale. Just be careful about how you're presenting yourself in this situation, alright?”

“Yes, mother.” He was getting uncomfortable with this subject now. Everyone he knew had advised him about it.

The wives exchanged one of their many glances.

“Anyway, what do you think will be the theme of this year's winter ball?” Sara asked, changing the subject.

Jeremy gratefully took the out, and they delved into a discussion of the relative merits of the different themes suggested.

***

Jean was getting more and more frequent visits from the prince. He didn't always remain silent. Sometimes he talked. He talked of everything and nothing as if Jean and he were the greatest friends. He talked of the approaching ball, about the ridiculous men and women who presented ridiculous gifts to him, of his love for his friends and sometimes of his fears. Jean liked to hear him talk about his pet peeves and funny childhood memories. Jean liked to hear him talk of his days and hopes and dreams.

Jean just liked to hear him talk. His words filled a void in him which his family's curse had left. They soothed him and gave him self belief.

***

Jeremy trusted the man now. Even if he didn't know his name, even if he didn't know a thing about his past Jeremy trusted him. Which everyone, especially Andrew, told him was a stupid thing to do. He tried to keep his distance from the beautiful man after that, but it did not last for more than three days.

***

The days the prince didn't come were the worst. Jean just worked on without the familiar warmth beside him. Without the soothing voice that he had grown accustomed to. His family came and sat with him when they were swans sometimes. Nicky especially would put his neck on Jeans lap and close his eyes. He was very lonely with the separation from his lover Erik. The other swans spent entire days gliding gracefully on the water.

***

When his family turned back Jean would go inside and they would talk as Jean listened. They apparently worked on an instinct basis when they were swans. Kevin told him that he just knew that Jean was a trustworthy person. They didn't remember much but they all had memories of the prince.

Jean watched them arguing among each other. Joined their hugs with each other. He desperately wanted to speak to them. Ask for advice about what he felt about the prince from Renee. But he did not speak, he just sat and watched.

***

The preparations for the ball were going on in full swing  and they left Jeremy with very little time to visit the man. But today he had all of his scheduled meetings cleared. He took a deep breath as he started the walk to the pond. The swans were gliding on the water when he reached. The man was working with his nettle thread. Jeremy had heard of the Ramie cloth but he had never known it required such an elaborate process.  

He went to him. The man smiled when he saw that it was Jeremy and that smile lit up Jeremy's heart. _I would do everything to keep that smile on his face,_ he thought. And then Jeremy realised what he had thought and understood the look Sara and Laila had passed between them. It was their he-should-know-but-we'd-rather-he-learn-for-himself face.

****

Jean looked up to find the prince— _Jeremy,_ as he has asked Jean to call him—beaming at him. Jean's own returning smile was wide. The sun had set already and Jean had given up hopes of Jeremy coming to visit that day.

“C’mon, I've got something to show you.”

Jeremy took Jean behind the cottage and near some rocks which Jean hadn't noticed before.

He took Jeans hand _oh so gently_ and guided him to a sort of shelter which had formed between the rocks. It was almost but not quite a cave.

“This used to be my spot. I came here when I needed to figure things out. I still do sometimes.”

***

Jeremy was nervous about showing the shelter to the man. It was his childhood dreaming place where he had spent countless hours alone just sitting and thinking. He wanted the man to understand why this place meant so much to him.

***

Jean had never tested the limits of the curse before but something about Jeremy made him much braver than he was. He sat down on the sand pulling Jeremy with him. They looked at each other for a moment before he turned his attention to the ground.

He started tracing a letter.

***

Jeremy watched the man start writing on the ground. _J,_ he traced. Then _E,_ an A and then an _N. “Jean.”_ He read out loud. The man’s name.

It was beautiful.

***

Jean felt warm when he heard Jeremy speaking his name. The way he spoke it was different from anyone before. It was almost reverent.

He couldn't look up and see Jeremy's face that would be too much. So he kept on writing.

 _I like your voice. It makes me feel safe._  Even in writing he sounded like a lovesick young man. He felt like a lovesick young man.

***

Jeremy wanted to kiss the man. Jean. He said the name over and over again in his mind almost like a chant. He was giddy with joy.

He started writing too.

_You make me calm. No matter what I'm worried about sitting near you helps._

***

Jean never felt calm when Jeremy was around. But he did feel his worries melt away around him. His terror and past always were the strongest in the nights. The prince was sunshine in his dark world.  

 _I'm glad_ he wrote.

***

_Have you been unable to speak since you were born?_

 

Holding conversation while writing should have been easier for Jeremy, there certainly was a lot less stumbling around words that refused to come out of his mouth. But this way was much more terrifyingly honest.

_***_

_No._

Jean wrote back.

_I was able to speak until recently. The truth is…_

He stopped.

His hand wouldn't move. Terror overcame him. What if he had undone everything?

 

 _Yes?_ The prince wrote to him.

 

_I can't. I can't tell you. I'm unable to._

***

Jeremy could see the now thinly cloaked horror on Jean’s face.

 

_I trust your reasons._

 

_***_

Fireflies had come out. Jeremy sat with Jean as they watched them glow. He felt incandescent.

_This place is beautiful._

_Yes, yes it_ _is._

Jeremy screwed up his courage.

_Come to the ball with me? I'd like to dance with you._

Jean stared at him for moment. Jeremy was afraid of refusal.

_Yes._

***

Matt and Dan were sitting on a single chair together. Being swans for most of the day meant that they didn't get to talk. Or touch. Or exchange those thousands of domestic gestures they had developed in the five years of their marriage. He still scouted her favourite flowers for her. Filled the only chipped vase they had in the cottage with snowdrops in the fifteen minutes he got. They stayed together as swans too.

***

Renee knew something was up with Jean. He was almost done with the first jacket and he smiled as he worked. He took her to a place hidden in the rocks. Apparently the prince had taken him there. Renee knew what he looked like when he fell for someone and he was wearing that expression. She wondered how they would have worked out if she hadn't fallen for Allison. She wondered if she would ever actually have the courage to court her.

She wondered what the man who caused it was like.

Kind, to give sanctuary to a stranger. Gentle, to get through Jean’s defences. Understanding, accepting, not minding the fact that Jean didn't speak. Jean deserved such a man.

The shelter was beautiful.

***

Jean began taking his work to the rocks. The peace helped. Jeremy came often. They developed a physical closeness which hadn't come in the open. Here, unseen, Jeremy often lay on Jean’s lap. Jeremy didn't mind the threads, which Jean was joining to make the second jacket, falling on his face.

He asked if he couldn't help Jean.

_The task must only be done by me. I don't know what would happen if someone aided me._

Then,

_You being here helps though. I like it._

Sometimes when Jean’s fingers ached too much for him to work on the thread for any longer he would place his hands on Jeremy’s soft golden hair. Or on Jeremy’s hands. The Prince would stop speaking as Jean did it. Jean loved to astonish him like that.

“Uncle, I’ve chosen my partner for the ball.” Jeremy practiced on his mirror, Sara and Laila but mostly his mirror.

“You sound like you've committed a crime.” Sara spoke from his bed.

”Like getting betrothed without his knowledge.” Her wife suggested.

Jeremy chuckled. “That would be a disaster. He'd refuse to accept the betrothal until I broke it and did it again with him present.”

Jokes aside, Jeremy was still afraid that his Uncle was going to disapprove of Jean. The man wasn't conventional. Nor was he someone who would give little nephews and nieces to Razia. Rehman and Razia’s consent mattered a lot to him. They were the ones who had loved him after his parents died of a mysterious disease. They treated him as the child they never had. He wanted them to like the man he wanted to spend his life with— _dance this ball with,_ he reminded himself.

***

“Uncle, Aunty, I've been seeing a man.” Jeremy told Razia and Rehman.

“We were wondering when you were going to introduce them to us.”  She replied.

“You knew?”

“Yes. You disappeared for hours on end and always came back smelling like someone else,” Abdul joked.

“I.. We..didn't-”

Razia cut the poor child off before he grew even more embarrassed and told him that Abdul was just enjoying making him blush.

“You also refused to give any suitors audience. We guessed that there might be someone else involved. Also the palace maids gossip a lot. Jenny told me about you visiting the ‘handsome, fair and silent guest’ everyday.”

***

Of course they knew all along. Jeremy had been dreading this part but he needn't have.

“So tell us about him,” his uncle asked.

Jeremy told them a lot about Jean. From how they had met to his unique bond with his swans, to his nature, to how much he enjoyed being with him.

***

Jean was sitting with Dan in the hut. Neil had gone outside, Matt and Kevin were collecting wood in the forest, and Renee and Nicky were praying.

“You've been invited to a royal ball,” she stated.

Jean nodded.

“He must really like you. Take care though, Jean.”

“I noticed how no one here has talked about the most important thing,” called out Nicky from the other room. They must have finished while Dan and Jean were speaking.

“What?” Renee asked.

“What are you going to wear? We've got none of my clothes here.”

Jean went blank. For all the fabric he was working on these days, he'd never given thought to his own clothes.

He realised how he must look compared to the prince in his colourful robe. He was an outsider. Someone with dirty clothes, and blistered and bloody hands. Jeremy was nobility. By all protocols Jean shouldn't even have been invited to the winter ball. Much less as the prince’s special guest.

****

“So. You're taking the Swan Man to the ball,” Andrew said as they walked through the palace.

“Yes. His name is Jean.”

“I know. How is he?”

Andrew hated small talk, but this was necessary. He needed to know that Jean wasn't like so many men who flirted with Jeremy.

“He’s a good person. We enjoy each other's company. He makes me feel different,” Jeremy said with a besotted look.

It wasn't about Jean making Jeremy feel _different._ It was more about Jeremy doing that to Jean, too.

****

Alvarez pointed out that Jean would have no clothes to wear to the ball.

“He was wandering when you took him in. No one carries silks while doing that.”

“I hadn't realised.”

“Of course you hadn't.” She rolled her eyes. “Would you like my wife and I to look into his outfit?”

Jeremy smiled brightly at that. He went over to where she was sitting on his bed and kissed her on her cheek.

“That would be great.”

******

Jeremy had told Jean that he would be unable to come that day as he had to sit on a council meeting. His childhood friends, Ladies Bermott and Alvarez, would be visiting though.

Jean wondered what they might want as he worked on the steps. The shelter was sacred to Jeremy and his visits only.

***

Laila had a lot of ideas for the dress coat she wanted to sew for Jeremy’ s suitor. Jeremy had described him as pale, tall, handsome, dark eyed, slender, and handsome. Laila thought she was prepared for the man as they came closer to his place. But her breath was still taken away by his beauty.

Beside her Sara had a similar reaction.

He was on the steps knitting with a pale green fibre Jeremy said was made of of nettles. She found it odd, but Jeremy didn't mind. And who was she to judge? Besides, a lot of people used Ramie as a fabric. Just not for knitting. It might have been different in his village.

***

Jean saw the women approaching. One had bags in her hand while the other carried baskets.

They called out to him. He waved at them. When they arrived, he took them inside.

****

“Hello. I'm Sara Alvarez and this is my wife, Laila. We're Jeremy's companions and oldest friends.”

Jean nodded to both of them.

“Jeremy mentioned that you might not have any clothes suitable for the ball with you. Do you?”

He shook his head.

“Laila is a decent enough seamstress,” Sara said.

“You're not a half bad embroiderer either, love.” Laila retorted.

“Anyways, we'd like the honor of dressing you for the ball.”

Jean was glad that Jeremy wasn't there for once. He was blushing down to his toes. These women treated him as one of their own, not minding that he only spoke in nods and gestures, or that their oldest friend was attracted to him. They just came to help.

Jeremy talked about them often. He spoke of their ridiculous, tenacious advances towards the other when they both realised they were becoming  more than friends,. of the pigtail pulling they had done even as young girls.

They set to work on his measurements. It took quite a while. Then they debated the merits of various fabrics, sometimes asking for his opinion or to choose between two samples.

***

Tetsuji was an ambitious person. And ambition often means a thirst for power. He had started working on more and more advanced potions before his brother had banished him. He ached for revenge. But he had been able to rebuild his reputation from nothing in a new kingdom along with some beguiling charms. He subsisted on that for some time, squashed his ambition, waited for the right time to strike.

He started working on a _carus_ brew.

***

Razia wanted the best for her nephew. Which meant she would like to meet the man he was so enchanted by. So did her husband. Jeremy’s enthusiasm reminded her of how Abdul used to be back then, learning that her favourite flowers were jasmines  because they reminded her of her mother, and then bringing her vases upon vases of them till her entire house reeked of them. She remembered how he had been Knox then. How he had accepted her faith for her. The path to their marriage had never been easy; they were very different people, but love made it smoother. She still reprimanded him for his brashness and he still complained about her. They still fought. But as King and Queen they presented a united front to the people. And as husband and wife they still had a lot to teach and learn from each other. They were happy together. She only wished that Jeremy would find such happiness.

****

Andrew had followed Jeremy once to the rocks. Jeremy and his silent companion did nothing except sit together and stare at the other when they weren't looking. They sometimes wrote in the sand _. Flirted_ in the sand, he guessed from how they blushed.

He wasn't jealous, he thought, as he stood behind a bush and observed. He wasn't jealous. But he did feel a pang in his heart seeing them sit so close to each other.

His stepbrother and his ‘ _just brotherly affection, dear. He's a naturally touchy person. ‘_ had ensured that he would never truly feel comfortable being touched by anyone. Looking at all the couples around him, it sometimes felt as if everything was about those small touches.

His meditation was interrupted by one of the man's swans. It bowed its head to Andrew. Not sure of what to do, he bowed towards the swan, too. He felt ridiculous he stared into the swan’s bright blue eyes. But then the swan came near him and let him stroke it. _Suspiciously docile._

 

***

Jeremy wanted to see the outfit Laila had sewn for Jean. But Laila and Sara both refused. They wanted it to be a surprise, they said. The ball was next week and Jeremy had been inundated with tasks for its opening and barely left him with any hours to see Jean.

 

He fantasized about what it would be like to hold him in the dance. Would Jeremy lead? Would Jean? How would Jean’s hands feel against his, how would his hands feel on Jeremy’s waist?

He fell asleep to these dreams.

****

The swans were actually comforting Andrew found. He used to mock Jeremy with his enchantment with Jean but he found that he was enchanted by the creatures. He went to the pond in the evenings with Jeremy and while he visited his sweetheart Andrew would sit at the shore with the swans. They didn't expect as much of him as anyone else he knew did. He could smoke in quiet around them, just watching them in the water. They came to him too, once they had gotten used to his presence. One swan in particular, the bright blue eyed one, did this. Andrew found that he didn't mind having the swan touch him. It felt different to human touch.

****

Jean dressed himself for the ball. Jeremy had offered to send grooms but he had refused. He didn't want them to see the scars on his back. He was glad that the scars were in his back rather then his chest. Memories of a mother who always  hit him in hunger and those of a father who had shattered a glass bottle on his back were not something he ever wanted to relive. They were something that were behind him.

He knit with that in mind. For every nettle that he cut every time his hands stung and he felt like screaming he remembered the people who had helped him put his past behind him. He comforted himself with the presence of the man who was brightening his present. He strengthened himself with the hope of a future.

***

Jeremy waited impatiently for Jean. He wanted to dance with him and he wanted to introduce him to his guardians. At least he was getting one ritual of their extremely odd courting right.

***

Andrew was tired of the ball already. Aaron went dancing with his wife as soon as the quartet started and then as soon as Andrew was alone several men tried to waylay him into either dancing or talking about politics. Neither of which he was very much interested in doing.

He stayed till Jeremy’s partner Jean came, not missing the way both of their faces lit up as he left.

***

Andrew reached the pond. The swans weren't there. They sometimes disappeared before the sunset. He hadn't yet been able to figure out where they went.

But as leaned against a tree and drew up a cigar, a boy came near the place where he sat. He stopped short on seeing Andrew. The boy was vaguely familiar to him though he couldn't have said why.

Andrew didn't know why he did what he did then. Maybe because the boy was good looking, maybe because the boy’s eyes were so striking. Maybe because Andrew was bored.

He walked to the boy and offered him his remaining Cigar.

***

The boy took it after some deliberation and put it in between his lips.

“I'm Andrew.”

“I'm…-” the boy stopped. Thought. “-Neil.”

“Neil, huh?  People don't usually take so much time coming up with their birth name name.”

He didn't reply. Just let Andrew’s cigar in his mouth burn completely without taking any smoke in his mouth.

“Idiot.”

The boy smiled at that.

“Thank you for the cigar.”

“You didn't even smoke”

“I just like the smell. And you're partly right, but to me Neil is the only name which matters.”

Then he turned and left.

***

Neil remembered the man a bit from his swan time. The golden hair. Flashes of a winged journey with the man on a horse.The man stroking his neck as his swan form lay on his lap.

***

Andrew returned to the party which had begun in earnest after his disappearance. There were many more couples on the dance floor now.

***

Jeremy felt giddy when Jean finally stepped through the doors. He looked stunning. Laila had sewn a black coat which hugged Jean  in all the right places while Sara had embroidered massive feathers on it in some silver thread which brought Jean’s swans to mind. He looked like a prince in that outfit. A king. Someone whom Jeremy would gladly serve. But then Jeremy would serve Jean in any outfit.

They both quickened their pace as they walked across the hall to reach the other.

***

The entire palace was bedecked in jewels for the ball.  There was so much to look at. The revels in Ichirou’s palace had been much more reserved but Jean couldn't see any of that. He just looked at Jeremy walking towards him. He felt apprehensive, unsure of what the protocol was. What he was supposed to do. But then they had come within touching distance of each other. Jeremy had taken his hand in his. _Kissed_ it.  Jean had asked the ladies to give him gloves to wear. It felt wrong to parade his scars like that. But they hadn't given him gloves.

***

Jeremy loved taking away Jean’s breath. He loved those fingers of his. He loved to kiss them. He wanted to keep kissing them. He wanted to kiss Jean everywhere. His cheeks, neck, stomach and lips.

But he pulled himself together.

“Do you know how breathtaking you look?”

Jean kissed Jeremy’s cheek. Wow.

***

Razia and Rehman watched their nephew talk to the man be wanted them to meet. Jean. Jeremy looked happy and so did the man. They looked deliriously happy. And in love.

***

Jeremy took Jean to meet his uncle and aunt. For all his desire for them to meet, he was nervous.

Razia and Rehman knew that Jean was unable to speak but knowing something and accepting it are different. How many people would consent to see a mute king consort on the throne?

No. He was getting ahead of himself.

 

***

Jean could feel Jeremy’s pulse on his hands.

“Uncle, Aunty. This is Jean.”

Jean bowed to his guardians. Jeremy was used to people showing so much deference to them, but it felt odd for him to see it coming from Jean. Jean was a big part of his life, a part which he had never thought of as apart from his life with his family and friends. But he realised that Jean obviously didn't know that.

“Jean, nice to finally meet you. Jeremy has spoken much about you.” Razia smiled at him.

Rehman could see the discomfort on Jeremy’s face. His nephew was a lot like himself. He never hid what he felt without a sense of wrongdoing.

He shook Jean’s hand.

“I think we'll get along.”

**

They danced after that. They danced for so long. Jean led sometimes. Sometimes Jeremy did.

It was nothing like the balls Jean had gone to in his home. Dancing with Jeremy was not like dancing with any good looking girl or boy or even like dancing with Renee.

Before, Jean was too aware of everything  everyone in the room. But now he could only pay attention to Jeremy. He didn't even know if they were moving or not. He could just feel the euphoric rush of happiness. The heat at every point they were touching. Jean felt afire.

This is the love they speak of. The love the bards write poems for.  He was falling a little deeper in it everyday.

***

Jean was making indelible marks on his heart. His smiles throughout the night killed Jeremy.

Jeremy wanted to keep doing this for the rest of his life. He wanted. He wanted so much.  To hold Jean close to him. To keep loving him.

He wanted to marry Jean.

***

Tetsuji finished the hard part of the brew to the clamour of the ball outside. Malcolm, the only person whom he trusted stood guard outside. Now he just had to let it settle for the next stage. He dreamed of the power the potion would grant him. He dreamt of Ichirou falling asleep and never awakening. Of regaining the power he once had.

 


	3. Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marriage proposals. Andrew makes a human friend.  
> Fluff. And some non fluff.  
> TW for past abuse and implied rape. I've marked those passages with //  
> Tell me if I missed anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on Tumblr as @arianarenaldi. This chapter was a bear to write. Comments and kudos are appreciated.

PART THREE

  
  


Rehman and Razia  were lying on their bed together. The breeze spread the smell of Jasmines around them. Razia loved flowers. He loved Razia. So her rooms were always full of them. They often did that, talked late into the night when they didn't need to have the cloak of dignity around them. When they were just a couple not the people who ruled the land. They left matters of court behind on such nights and talked of the little things and  the big things. Of sunsets and sunrises. Of grief and joy. Shared childhoods and growing old together.

Tonight they talked of Jeremy. He was the pride of their hearts. The boy who could be relied upon to help anyone. They talked of what his father, Rehman’s brother, would have thought of how he had grown up. When Charlie and his wife had died of a mysterious illness the entire kingdom had plunged into grief. They had been well loved. Their rule had been one of prosperity. Jeremy had been eight at that time. No child should have to go through the hurt and sorrow he had gone through then. Razia had been afraid for him, afraid that he wouldn't laugh again. But all three of them learnt that time heals all wounds. It leaves scars in the form of memories, yes. But Rehman would rather cry over the memory of Charlie sometimes than forget about his brother entirely.

They talked of Jeremy’s lover. They had liked him and could see that the trust which both placed into each other. The affection that was there between them. _Jean was unable to speak he might be scorned for it_ he said But Razia had seen strength inside the boy. The way he looked at Jeremy. His hands when he had shaken Rehman’s. He looked like someone who wouldn't care for the opinions of people who didn't matter to him. _What to do then?_ They decided to ask Jeremy to invite Jean over for eating with them sometimes. So that they might get to know him better.  Then they laughed about awkward suppers which Rehman had attended at Razia's house all the spicy curries of her homeland which he had been unable to eat.They went to sleep holding each other.

***

Jean finished the first jacket a week after the ball. Jeremy was with him in the hut this time, it was getting colder. They had a notebook each on their laps as they sat by the fire and took turns conversing. The swans were inside. Jeans hands were aching. He thought about how it would be harder to get nettle when it snowed. It would still be there but he would have to dig under snow. He wondered how he would explain this craziness to Jeremy. _I'm trying to save my family. I need to get the nettle from under all this snow._ As if the curse would allow him to convey even this much.

***

Jeremy was in his Uncle's study that morning. They were going through the bills which the council had recently proposed. They worked in silence with Jeremy occasionally asking questions. It was slow going. Some of the changes aligned with what his Uncle wanted while some didn't. Those which didn't would need to be diplomatically made as close to what Rehman needed as possible, speaking of diplomacy he wanted to talk to Razia about advancing his courtship but he hadn't yet even bought Jean to the palace for a formal dinner.

Rehman broached the subject first after they had finished with almost half the laws. “Your Aunt and I would like to talk with you about the man you took to the ball.”

***

Andrew went back to the swans. He hadn't seen the boy, supposedly Neil, for the entirety of the past  week. Of course Neil must have had things to do. People don't just sit on the rocks and be interesting. He did ask around for him though. Andrew had never seen him on the palace staff before. He even asked his brother if he had hired any new caterers. He hadn't. Andrew didn't know why he had even bothered.

This time though a familiar redhead was sitting with his back against the tree Andrew had last _first_ met him.

“Hello again.” He called out to Andrew.

“Hello. _Neil_ come here often?” He asked.

“No, but apparently you do.” he replied with a grin. Andrew wondered what he meant. He thought of asking but he didn't.

“What are you doing here?” he asked instead.

“Sitting. Escaping some people. You?”

***

Neil had come out to escape from Kevin. Renee was working on Jean’s hands as Matt and Nicky impersonated what they thought Jean dancing would be like. There were a lot of hushed giggles coming from the hut. The hushing being done by mainly Kevin. Neil had often sat with Andrew when he had been a swan. The man was a lot like his family in many ways. He didn't fit in. Neil wondered why.

***

Andrew felt as if he needed to answer Neil’s question. But he didn't. He just went and sat beside the boy. He noticed how they were both careful to not touch the other. They watched the sun climb down the horizon together.

“I need to go.” Neil said as it came close to the sunset.

“Then leave.”

He stood up giving Andrew a two fingered salute before turning to leave.

***

Renee and Jean watched the dancing going on. It was ridiculous and just what they needed. Especially Jean. Renee wondered what kind of a future she and Jean would have had together if she hadn't fallen for Allison. Allison had been her oldest playmate. The person she took her secrets to. They had talked over so many things and yet Renee had been afraid to bring up this one thing to her. How was she feeling right now? Abby’s message must have got to her. But Renee still worried.

She tried to come up with what Allison would have said had she been here. She couldn't. Alli had always been unpredictable to her. She was Renee’s rock the way Dan was Matt's, Erick was Nicky’s.

Allison’s  blue eyes were the last thing in her mind as they turned into swans.

***

Jeremy and Jean were sitting in the shelter. Jean again working on pressing the nettle bark and stripping strings from it. The coming of the winter meant that he had to get all the nettle which he could before it snowed and the ice froze and it became impossible to get the plant. His family went into the forest as soon as they transformed back to collect nettle for him. He had to do everything else himself. His hands were getting worse. Jeremy, sitting beside him, was unusually pensieve. Jean could almost feel the silence between them.He wondered what was on his mind.

“Can I not help you do this?” He suddenly asked.

They had had this conversation before. Jean never understood why Jeremy would want to help him in a seemingly unreasonable task.

 _No._ He wrote. The same as the last time.

 _It's getting colder. I think you should move inside the palace. We could bring your stuff there too._ Jeremy looked hopeful as if Jean would agree when he had refused so many times already.

 _I can't. Besides you're already helping me enough._ Jeremy had been sending food to Jean and lettuce for his swans.

His family would be too easily discovered if he was inside. He trusted Jeremy to keep his secret but he didn't know what discovery would lead to especially if it was intentionally helped along by him. Abby had said to keep quiet and not let people find out. Would the curse become permanent if he told anyone that his family was cursed?

 

***

Andrew sat at a table with his twin. They were getting better at talking to each other. Not too good but better. Aaron was going through a list of names which he and his wife had had ready for their yet unborn child ever since they got married. Andrew had declined to have any part in the conversation but here he was having been dragged into it anyways. Aaron was going through the boys names list now. Commenting on a name once in a while. “ _Ian after Katelyn's grandfather, Gerald, Adrian, Charlie after Jer’s father...Andrew”_

“What? I'm listening.”

Aaron looked scared. “No. We were thinking of giving him the second name Andrew. After you.”

“After me. Why?” Andrew had never been much of a role model to Aaron.

“You're my only family Andrew. Can you just take this as my way of apologising for not believing that you were speaking the truth about Spear?”

Now Andrew’s temper came to a boil. “The time for apologies is long past, Aaron. Don't name your child after me. He'll be miserable.” He stood up.

“Andrew. Stop. Please.”

Aaron had once told him how he hated that Andrew blamed himself for so much that had happened to them.

What Aaron didn't know was that he blamed himself _because_ he was responsible. He didn't feel guilty, he didn't have regrets over what he had done.The death of their mother, Tilda, by food poisoning the night before he met Aaron hadn't been an accident. He had to bring Aaron out of his nightmare. He hated the woman who had given birth to them. Who had ruined their lives. Andrew’s by giving him up and Aaron's by keeping him. Whom the village gossips knew so much about. Who drank worse than any teetotaller around. And tried to raise kill a child in that drunkenness.

“Remember how I don't like that word Aaron?”

//

Please reminded of those nights Cass had taught him politeness at the supper table _say please dear and I'll pass the pie._ Of those nights in which her son came into Andrew's room. Crassly imitating his mother, _Say please and I'll stop. Say please boy._ He never stopped.

//

Andrew had been sixteen when Jeremy found him. When he helped Andrew rescue Aaron. He had never stopped paying his debt since then.

***

Aaron had never been good with words which mattered. He didn't remember lullabies. He did remember the scores of nights he had cried himself to sleep, the bruises that formed in his body from his mother's washerwoman's hands.He remembered what stale alcohol smells like. What the horror of reading a letter by a dead mother felt like. A letter which told him of the existence of a twin. A brother. Someone who had escaped their mother. Escaped the brokenness which Aaron felt inside him.

He remembered the night in which guards had come into his house at night followed by  his twin. He remembered his first night in the palace. Remembered the first time he had tried to hug Andrew only to end up on the floor out of breath with a fist at his stomach. He remembered the first time he had seen Katelyn. How her touch seemed to heal a lot of the wounds which his mother had left. He remembered asking her to marry him. In broken words.

He had summoned his courage then. He would now.

**

“Andrew. I know that we're not... like many brothers. We're not even broken in the same places.”

 _Like the jagged edges of a cutlery. With a few pieces missing. No matter how hard we try to fit them together they never do_. Andrew thought. He and Aaron had come from the same womb and even though they had separated once they were living under the same roof today. But they had lost some irreplaceable pieces along the way to coming back together.

 

“I know that we don't speak much. You probably hate me and I'll never know.”

 I _don't_. He cared for his brother. More than he ever thought he would.

“Fine. Name your child after me. But remember I warned you.”

Aaron flashed a smile, _his own smile,_ at Andrew as he stood and left the room.

***

Andrew set towards the wood after that talk with Aaron. He wanted to calm down. He wanted to think.

***

Neil was on the lookout as the family gathered nettles in the forest. Though Neil couldn't see him, Jean was working on the nettles in his spot with the Prince beside him.  Neil made himself useful by making whistles for each of them.

A familiar blonde head appeared above him. He needed to blow a whistle signal that sunset was close and there were people around. He shouldn't have let Andrew sneak up on him like that. He was getting out of practice.

***

Neil was looking around as if Andrew had caught him doing something criminal. He had grass stalks on his lap. He was folding them into whistles. Andrew remembered the day one of the village boys, Roland, had taught him to do just that. Roland had been to a teenaged Andrew what Neil should have been today. A distraction. A pretty one. Roland hadn't burrowed himself in Andrew’s mind, hadn't intrigued him like this redhead was doing.Neil was staring at him .

“Hello Andrew.”

Andrew went and sat beside Neil. He somehow wanted to hold a conversation with this boy.  He had opened his mouth when a girl came out of the forest and stopped short upon seeing them sitting together.

Who was she?

***

When Neil’s signal for the sunset didn't come Dan had asked Renee to go and check. She came upon Neil sitting with the prince's friend. She walked up to them.

***

Renee must have been sent to look out for Neil by Dan or someone. She approached them.

“Neil. Thank God I found you. We were all getting worried!” she said in a needlessly affected tone. Neil wanted to snort.

“Who's your friend?” She asked. Polite as usual even when there was an immediate threat of turning into a swan.

“Oh. This is Andrew. Andrew, this is my friend Renee.”

“Pleased to meet you. Andrew.” She turned to Neil.

“We should get going.”

***

Andrew watched Neil leave with his _friend_. Only a few days ago he had told himself to be careful but he still couldn't prevent the jealousy that crept into his heart.

***

Neil wasn't interrogated by Renee on the way to the others. She just told him to take care. They all took the bundles of nettle which they had gathered and carried them into the hut taking a longer route out of the forest. The nettle which they had gathered over the past three days should be enough to allow Jean to pass the winter.

***

Tetsuji finished his sleep potion. It was strong enough to put a person in a deep coma.  He now just had to bide his time.

***

Jeremy watched Jean work. He lay on the ground beside him.Jean’s swans were clustered around them. Jean was systematically pressing the nettle bark to separate it and though he controlled it Jeremy could see the pain he felt on each press on his face. He hated being unable to do anything. He hated being unable to help.

He had noticed how Jean’s hands were getting stiffer and stiffer. Jeremy brought him balms. He brought ointments. He put them on Jean’s hands. He wanted to make Jean stop doing this. But Jean told him it was important. It needed to be done. Jeremy trusted Jean.

***

Jean was working on getting all the nettle ready to use.  He felt strangely desensitized to the sting of the nettles after working on them for so many hours every day. But when he stopped and put the plants aside, it came back. Like falling asleep with an injury.

But Jeremy’s balms helped. His touch on Jeans blistered hands and broken skin was always feather light. His words to Jean were always encouraging but he was quiet these days. Jean knew that a lot of it was because of the knitting which he was doing. More appropriately, because of the knitting he was doing without any explanation.

He wanted to scream sometimes.The itch to speak was slowly making itself known. His family helped. He missed their singing. He missed the music that Nicky would sometimes make from his flute. When they were human, his family collected nettles for him, they got food for themselves and him. He was grateful for the fifteen minutes daily which Abby had bought them but these minutes also felt like a punishment. Like Tantalus. Seeing them become what they always were to just change again.

***

Jeremy thought over everything that had passed between him and Jean in the three months since they had met.

Jeremy didn't know what to do. He had become sure of his wish to marry Jean in the ball. But he didn't know what Jean wanted. He kept second guessing any interaction they had had in his mind. He kept thinking about how he could be easily replaced by any other Prince who could provide Jean with salves and rooms and no one would know the difference. Jean wouldn't care. He wasn't good at being confident where it was needed the most. He might kiss Jean’s hands. He might want to reach for his lips. But he never would be able to. He needed to stop thinking.

***

Jean came to Nicky when he became human.

 _How do you know you deserve someone?_  He wrote. Nicky knew he was talking about the prince.

“You don't. You don't know if you deserve someone. It's hard to explain but when you love it's not about _deserving_ things. It's about it being unconditional. I never thought that I deserved this family and yet you gave it to me. I never thought that I deserved Erik but still he loves me.”

 

 _But_  Jean had started to write when Dan who had heard  Nicky said, “Nicky is right. We place people on pedestals when we adore them. But we never think about how the other person might be doing the same.”

 

“I was always so afraid to approach Allison. Afraid that she would always be a step ahead. Now it's all regrets.” Renee sighed.

 

“Besides. The prince looks at you as if you hang the moon, the sun and all the stars. He is probably just as anxious as you are.” Nicky knew the jitters that came with starting something new. And they were obviously much worse for Jean and Jeremy with Jean unable to speak and Jeremy a royal.

He came closer to Jean and hugged him like Jean had so done so many times before.  They sat that way till the sun set.

***

Jean went on working late into the night after his family turned back into swans. He was almost done pressing and dividing all the stems into halves. He would finish the second Jacket the next day. He thought as he sat. Thought of what he would like to do about Jeremy. He decided to be brave. That night as he fell asleep in the hut, he didn't think of the pain in his burning hands, he thought of lips that he imagined to be impossibly soft.

***

Jeremy knocked on Razia’s door. Razia was the mother that he had lost.  And a lot of the biggest events in his life had gotten sorted in this manner, by knocking on her door. His nightmares after his parents deaths, his decision to help Andrew and keep him as an advisor.

“I wanted to talk about Jean.”

He sat down on the carpet next to her chair as she put aside her needlework.

“What about him dear?”

“What should I do, I want to marry him but we've done nothing which could be described as a courtship. It can probably be nothing on his part, I could be just another nobody, and I won't know.”

Razia stroked his hair like she used to do when he fretted over his lessons. “Jeremy you're not and will never be _just another nobody._ Ask anyone. They’ll tell you this Jer,  You're the person anyone would go to with their troubles.And that is not a very easy thing to earn; being the person whom people trust to listen and not judge. I and your Uncle have both seen Jean, trust me when I say that whatever you are, you aren't a nobody to him. ”

“How'd you know? That Uncle was the one?”

“We took a chance. We didn't completely fit together. But we took a chance. He asked for my hand. I accepted.”

Jeremy realised what she was trying to tell him. _Take a chance. Ask him. You'll never know otherwise._

She then started retelling some of Jeremy’s favourite anecdotes of his childhood.

That was the thing about Razia. She knew how much advice was enough advice.

***

Jean started working on the third jacket the day after talking with his family. Jeremy didn't come that day. Once he wouldn't have been so unhappy over that but today everything felt wrong. His hands ached worse than usual. He could smell the snow coming. His fingers refused to cooperate, they shook. The nettle knots he had made on his fingers kept slipping off.

He could feel the darkness coming. He knew that his breath was getting shorter. He couldn't feel his hands. Or his feet. Or anything. He felt too cold and too hot all at once.

//

Andrew was sitting by his usual tree in the evening when his swan which was perched on his lap went still and lifted his head as if listening for something. Andrew tried too to, while he heard nothing the swan on his lap got off and half flew half waddled to where its owner was sitting. Andrew followed it. As he came closer he heard it. The sound he had been so familiar with as a child. The heavy breathing. He ran inside. All the swans were clustered around Jean, who was crouched on the ground with his head on his knees. Drawn up in the foetal position. Andrew was familiar with that position. It protected you. If you couldn't see the darkness then the harm it caused would be less.

He bent down to the man, who had tears falling down from his face to the ground.

“Hey. Hey. Breathe with me.”

The man didn't look up.

Andrew sat next to him. “Can I touch you?”

There was no response. The man still cried silently. Andrew took hold of the back of his neck.

“Jean look up. I want you to breathe at my count.”

He then started counting.

“Let go of your breath at one, two, three, four.” Andrew remembered something Aaron had told him. Being unable to catch your breath wasn't just being unable to breathe in. It was often being unable to breathe out.

Jean shakingly let out his breath.

“Now inhale. One, two, three, four.”

As the man followed his words, he became calmer with each cycle.

//

Jean looked at the man guiding him though his breathing. As soon as his pace returned to something like normal Andrew let go of him. Or maybe it was Aaron. No Andrew. He remembered Jeremy telling him how Andrew didn't like to be touched by people.

Jean’s mind felt addled. He opened his mouth to speak when he realised what he was doing and clamped his lips shut. His swans moved around them. “I'll send Jeremy here.”Andrew said and then he stood up and left.

***

The man's swans were all sitting close to him as if protecting him. Unnatural.

***

Jeremy felt a lot clearer about what he wished to do after taking Razia’s advice. He decided to visit Sara and Laila in their townhouse to talk about a plausible action plan. As he was on the way out to the stable Andrew came to him.

“Your lover boy had a breakdown.”

“What?”

“Jean. He was crying in the cave.You should go to him.”

A thousand possible scenarios ran in Jeremy’s head. So many terrible thoughts. The foremost one being _it is because of me._

***

Jean felt embarrassed about this breakdown. He should be strong right now, especially right now, and yet he cried over some shaky fingers.

But his family came and sat near him. He stroked Kevin's neck. There had been a point after they had run away when Kevin and Jean had both spent night after night awake. Afraid. Even as young children they had known that safety comes at a price, had known that at one point they would have to pay for this happiness that they were building for themselves.

Maybe this was the price for Jean, his repentance for leaving his mother alone. Morals were a very blurred line then, were blurred still. It hadn't been a choice between running or staying. It had been one between punishing himself then or later.

Jean sat for sometime before he heard Jeremy.

“Andrew told me. Is it alright if I come?”

Jean nodded. He felt better.

Jeremy came and sat beside him. Jean looked at the Prince. He looked abashed.

“I meant to come here. Just not today.”

Disappointment ran through Jean. Who had he been for thinking he could be brave? Jeremy probably had other tasks, important ones.

***

Jeremy realised what his mistake was as soon as it came out of his mouth and Jean lost that smile which he had put on when Jeremy arrived. He wanted to smack his head.

_You can visit me any time._

Jeremy wondered at the implications of that sentence.  You can visit me anytime, I don't care too much. Or you can visit me any time I like to have you around. He wondered which one Jean had meant. Jeremy wished Jean could speak. With all these written words he was never sure of the meaning. Tones sometimes made up the meaning.

_I do do that. Don't you get tired of my company?_

_No._

_What happened today? If you want to talk._

Jean paused for a long time before he wrote anything.

***

Jean didn't know how the curse worked. _I'll be brave._ He began writing.

_It's important for me to make these jackets. And important that I do it myself. you could say that I'm paying a debt, one which I'm glad to._

It was hard to summon up the right words to write. But Jean felt as if he owed at least this to Jeremy. For helping him. For dancing with him. For making him feel so much. Even if it went nowhere, he had to try.

_I told you that I like your company once. Remember? I wasn't lying then. I like being here with you._

_Me too, Jean. Me too._

_***_

Jeremy looked at Jean after he wrote that. Jean was staring at him too.

_Take a chance._

He took Jean’s hands in his. They were calloused. Jeremy could feel the blisters. He could feel Jean’s pulse in his hands or maybe it was his own.

***

Jean stared at Jeremy. His heart was racing. Jeremy had an awed look. Jean felt oddly proud of being the reason for that look.

Jeremy’s hands around his fit. _Be brave._  He took a hand from Jeremy’s to place his fingers on Jeremy’s cheeks.

***

It was strange, this feeling. Being touched like this.

He found himself leaning in. Leaning towards Jean.

He had wanted to do this since he first saw Jean. Since he first got to know him.

Jean came closer too. Their lips met.

***

Jean spoke all the words he was unable to  in his kiss. _Hope. Home. Joy. Trust. Love._

***

Jeremy had no idea how he had gone for so long without doing this. He felt as if everything had come to a standstill. Everything except his heart which was trying to beat out of his chest.

They kissed for a long time. As if trying to pour all their desire from the moment they had met into a single kiss.

***

“You've no idea how long I've wanted to do that.” Jeremy said.

_Oh. I think I do._

They went back to kissing after that.

**

Jean thought the heady rush of this was making him mad.

***

Jean realised that the swans were all staring at them with great concentration. He'd had his first kiss with Jeremy in front of all his family. He hoped they wouldn't remember this when they turned back though he didn't hold too much to the hope.

Jeremy laughed at the unwanted avian attention. “Your swans are very voyeuristic aren't they.”

Jean could feel the blush which stained his cheeks at the thought of his family being _voyeuristic._

The sun was climbing down. Jean cursed the winter days.

_I need to put the swans in. Wait for me?_

_Of course._

_***_

As soon as Jean got his family inside they all. turned back. Kevin looked green. Renee, Dan and Matt all congratulated him with barely concealed smiles while Nicky and Neil crackled with laughter.

He went outside after glaring at them.

***

Jeremy and Jean held hands as they sat together and watched the sun set over the the pond.The winter air was crisp and they sat closer to each other to get warmth. They watched in silence before Jeremy had to leave for supper. Jean went into the cottage after Jeremy left when a servant came with his own food.

****

Katy had worked in the palace with her mother ever since she had been a child of twelve. She had great respect for the King and the prince but it had been Her Royal Highness Queen Razia Sultana who had earned her love first. Katy still had a faint memory of the evening she had fallen asleep in the Queen’s favourite chair in her chambers. She had been tired and hungry. Her Majesty hadn't been angry. She had food to be brought in for Katy.

After that the Queen always greeted Katy by her name and sometimes wished her good morning first. She had watched Katy grow up. Katy would do anything for her.

***

Andrew had no idea sometimes why the sixteen year old him had accepted Jeremy’s offer to live in the palace with him. Was it because Jeremy never seemed to judge him even when he, Jeremy, was a teengaer of eighteen? Was it because he wanted the illusion of safety? A big part of his accepting had been the promise on the Prince’s part to take in Aaron too and get rid of Tilda but the poison had been Andrew’s own, Jeremy just chose to ignore the large possibilities of the death being a murder.  Andrew wondered why Jeremy or his Uncle and Aunt ever even trusted him.

 //

As he went to the pond he thought of what Jeremy had told him. He had finally kissed the man he had been pining after for so long. Andrew wondered what it was like to kiss someone you actually wanted to and not just because they were stronger than you, not because you were afraid of being told to leave by the only mother like person you had known. _But every like is not the same-_ Cass’ had been like a mother's but a real mother would not have ignored the blood on the sheets or the blood on his hands or his flinches. A real mother would not have looked disappointed when Andrew told her the truth. _People can see everything they just believe what they want to. She loves him more than she does you, so of course she will not believe you._

Drake had taken so much advantage of this knowledge. _You know you are a foundling. I wonder why my mother even keeps you around._

Andrew had started washing his own sheets just to keep his head down. But you get tired of keeping your head down, tired of just taking anything which falls on you of never striking back. He did too. He struck, amateurishly, with a kitchen knife. He was taken to the guards who patrolled the city. He went to prison. He would have stayed there. But a guard named Higgins got his case to the king. Andrew still remembered being brought in cuffs to the court. Still remembered the sound of the mallet. _Self defence_ they had ruled. He had had his punishment already with three years in prison.  He remembered the day he got out. He remembered trying to pick the pocket of a boy in the streets when he was hungry. Being caught again. Being touched like that again, being made to bow down _to your prince_. His flinch. Jeremy having him unhanded, seeing his scars. Asking him why. He remembered telling Jeremy. It had been oddly freeing.

 //

 _They had become friends of a sort. The urchin and the prince.He was the person Jeremy came to when he snuck out._ Jeremy was the person he had gone to when a village pub owner mistook him for Tilda’s son. Jeremy accepted him. Darkness and all. _Come with me. Stay._ _Your brother too._ Jeremy had said the day he told Jeremy of Aaron. He had said it before too but that was the first time Andrew considered accepting.

 

***

Neil was sat outside with Kevin when they saw Andrew coming. Kevin went inside saying something about not wanting to interrupt anymore lovers’ trysts. Neil almost regretted telling his family about Andrew.

He didn't know why they sat together in the evenings, why they bore each other's company in a time they both said was supposed to be their alone time. But he did know that there was nothing lover-like in what they did.

“I've been thinking.”Andrew said as he came closer.

“Thinking what?”

“Thinking about how you keep your secrets.”

“What secrets?” Neil said trying to act dumb.

“You don't work here. You're only here for a few minutes everyday. You never stay beyond sunset. Neil is probably not your name. Shall I go on?”

“No. I get what you're trying to say. What will you do about it though? I don't owe you anything.” He hated the defensive edge which crept into his voice.

“How about this I give you a truth about me for every truth you give me about yourself?”

Neil considered the offer. Andrew, he thought, probably had just as many secrets as he himself had. From the knives he carried in his sleeves to the way he had recoiled when Neil had once touched his hand. But why would Neil want to know these secrets. Carrying another person's load with himself was not something which he needed to do, he barely carried his own. But he was undoubtedly fascinated by Andrew. And he did want to learn more.

“Fine. Except if I refuse to tell you anything you won't press.” Neil remembered the restrictions the curse placed upon you.

***

Andrew had wanted to ask so many questions to Neil. _Who put those scars on you? What is your name? What do you do?_

 _“_ What made you change your name?”He asked.

***

Nathaniel, Nathan, Neil. So many names coming of the same person. Neil hated his father but he still had his father's smile, his hair and his eyes. he remembered the first time somebody had asked him his name after he had run away. _Nathaniel Wesninsky is dead. “_ I'm Neil. Neil Josten” He had said. Discarding the name had felt like the first step towards change. Making a new name the first towards remaking himself to be something his father wasn't.

****

“My name was one I got from my father. He wasn't the best person. When I escaped I took the part of the name he hadn't laid stake on and left behind the rest.”

Andrew understood where those scars on his face came from. He wondered how many others were hid by Neil’s clothes.

“Why do you hide the knives when you could openly have a sword?”

_It had been part of his sentence. No weapons. And yet Razia had given him the knives. “You should not be left defenceless. I'll have my father teach you how to use them.”_

“The knives were a gift. People assume a lot about me. I am not supposed to have weapons. They assume I'm defenseless. The knives are a way to prove them otherwise if they act upon the assumptions.”

Andrew was lying. The knives were more of a way to reassure himself that he wasn't defenceless. To let him know that the blades he had used to injure himself would be better used to injure the people who hurt him.

****

The sun was about to set.

“Shouldn't you be leaving now?” Andrew asked.

“Yes. Goodbye.” Neil stood and ran away. Like a figure in a dream. Andrew was starting to have doubts about Neil’s realness. Maybe he was a pipe dream. An interesting person gracing him with his presence for a quarter hour every day.

 

The swans came into the pond sometime after Neil left. Their owner behind them. Andrew watched his favourite swan walk to him.

***

Jean followed his family towards the pond. It was getting too cold to sit outside but he wanted to enjoy the last few days of fresh air before they would all be cooped up inside the hut.

He was not very surprised to see Neil walking away from the pond but he _was_ surprised to see him walking towards a man sitting nearby.

As they got closer Jean understood why. The man was Andrew Minyard, Neil’s new companion.

They nodded at each other in recognition. Neil reached Andrew with his awkward gait and curled up  beside him. Jean sat with his knitting, the swan Kevin and Nicky offering him closeness and warmth.

***

Andrew didn't feel intruded upon by the swan man. Anyone else seeing him pet a swan would have been awkward but Jean didn't comment on this uncharacteristic display of emotions from him. He understood, in a way, why Jeremy liked him so much. He was also handsome not as handsome as Neil, but still.

***

When Jeremy went to visit Jean, Andrew was already there. Jean and Andrew weren't sitting close to each other but they were both petting swans. It was a weird scene and Andrew’s eyes dared him to comment. He didn't. He sat beside Jean and wrote on his notebook

_Apparently he approves of you._

Jean didn't look towards Andrew as he wrote

_Or at least, he approves of my swans._

***

Andrew was at at a supper. The royal family's suppers were usually private but once every week they held one with the entire council  of advisors.These suppers were supposed to be a way to promote friendships but each time they just dissolved into mundane gossip. Or maybe that was how you promoted friendships. It wasn't very entertaining though.  

Andrew watched the couriters argue among themselves they were talking about the upcoming marriage of Lord Smith’s daughter with some nobility of King Moriyama’s court.

“So when are we going to be invited to Jeremy’s wedding?” Tetsuji asked above the clamour.Everyone fell silent at the subject change.

“Jeremy is courting someone though he would much rather not rush it.”Rehman answered.

“After all, they're both young yet.” Razia added.

Tetsuji turned on Jeremy. “Who is she, Your Highness?”

Everyone in the palace and their grandmother knew that Jeremy was courting Jean.

“It's a _he_.”

“But how do you intend to have children? It is far from my position to encroach upon your personal matters, my Prince. But I suggest that marrying a woman would be better than-”

“Hey Lord?”Andrew interjected in his spiel.

“Yes?”

“You said it wasn't your business to encroach. So don't do it.”

Razia might reproach him for his sharpness later but for now Jeremy shot a grateful look towards Andrew.

The supper went on. Andrew’s thoughts drifted like always but these days they had started to drift towards a certain redhead.

***

Jeremy couldn't help replaying the supper table conversation in his head. _A nice wife. A short courtship. They are young yet._

He wondered if it was time to ask Jean. He wondered how he was going to go about doing it.

***

Jeremy visiting was always a pleasure to Sara and Laila. As they sat together in the parlour exchanging pleasantries with  a cheery fire burning, Laila wanted to ask Jeremy about the nervous look on his face. He spoke before she could..

“How did you ask her to marry you?” He asked Laila. He'd heard the story before. And Laila understood it was not the story he needed to hear.

“I'd known that I wanted to spend my life with her. But even then screwing up enough courage to ask the question was very hard. I was terrified.”

“I terrify you?” Sara asked

“You don't. But actually getting the question out would have meant wrapping up this familiar routine we had had and changing so much of our lives. It was a risk. But one I was willing to take.”

 _He wants to ask Jean to marry him._ Laila realised.

***

His friends guessed where he was heading and began to give out ideas about how he would ask Jean. Jeremy ruled out any elaborate ideas his friends cooked up. He knew what Jean would like but he did leave their house feeling a lot surer about his plan.

***

Jean and Jeremy were sat inside the hut. It had started to snow lightly outside. The swans were all around them. Jeremy had taken to coming in the evenings  after supper when his work with his Uncle was done. It adjusted well with the swans’ changing times. Jean wasn't knitting, instead they were writing in their notebooks.

_Uncle and Aunt have invited you to supper with us._

_When?_

_Whenever you could come._

They decided on a few evenings later. Jeremy said that he would send clothes for Jean.

It was not condescending coming from him but Jean still felt as if it were wrong.

Jeremy joked about how if everything he sent was counted as a lover’s gifts then he would be the least romantic person in the kingdoms. Fire wood. Food for swans. And now clothes. A lover's gifts. Were they lovers? They hadn't talked about this. Jean needed to talk to his family about this.

***

Matt, Nicky and Kevin were sitting with Jean when he asked them if he and the prince could be called lovers. Matt didn't know how to tell Jean about how oblivious he could be, sometimes, towards the love he was surrounded by.

Even though Matt was a swan of all the times he had seen Jeremy, he still remembered enough of the way they behaved around each other to be confident enough to say that they were lovers. Maybe something more. There were very few people whom Jean ever let close enough to earn his trust. Matt knew that Jeremy was one of them.

 

***

His family advised him to talk to Jeremy. To put a name to this thing they had between them. Jean didn't know how he would broach the conversation though.

***

Neil hadn't been going to his and Andrew’s spot for a week now. He remained in the hut. A lot of it was due to the fact that he and Andrew had started the game of truths. Neil wasn't used to being honest about things. It felt wrong to so freely tell Andrew so many things he had kept hidden.

***

Andrew waited for Neil to come for a few days. He didn't. _Disappearing without a care._ Of course he was a rabbit. A rabbit who ran away at the first scent of truth. Andrew didn't know whom he was more disappointed in. Himself or Neil. He shouldn't have been this interested in someone. He took his knife out of his sleeve. Neil had asked about it. He traced the carving on it with his thumb.

***

Renee missed her church sometimes. She missed the light she would be bathed in when she entered. The quiet of it. She knew why Neil would go outside to sit with Andrew.

She went out too. Neil had stopped going, but for a few days she still saw Andrew waiting for him at their place. She spoke to Neil about it but he refused to go. Now, as she sat behind a rock watching the sun climb down, a restlessness overcame her. When she was younger she would simply take her knives and practice on them but she had let go of them now.

She remembered the man who had made her start to use them in the first place. The man who had killed her father. The nights her mother, Stephanie, had spent crying. The vow for revenge Renee had made. She didn't regret taking his life. But she regretted losing herself in the process. Allison made her feel like herself but that self didn't deserve Allison, she thought. She prayed but sometimes her prayers felt wrong.

_He is there. He will help you._

***

Andrew heard sounds in the forest. Neil, he thought. But it wasn't. It was the girl he had seen with Neil once. Renee. She looked up at him from where she sat. Her expression serene even if her eyes showed just how turbulent her thoughts were.

“Andrew.”

_Where's Neil?_

“We meet again Renee.”

Her eyes went to the knife in his hand. She didn't look scared, only sad by looking at it.

“I'm not going to use this on you.”

“Why would you? I've not done anything to you.”

She still eyed the knife.

“May I hold it?”

Andrew didn't know why he handed it over to her. Renee held the knife as if she had held one for years.

“Have you sparred before?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like to again?”

Andrew had no scruples about asking a woman to fight him. Knives were not wholly about strength of your body. They tested the strength of your mind. Your reflexes. Your command of the weapon. And this woman had plenty of it in her.

“I… It's been a long time. But yes.”

Andrew took out the other knife.

They sparred.

She used her knife in a manner Andrew had never seen before. It wasn't the precise military manner he had been taught, it wasn't any style he was familiar with. Her only goal seemed to be disarming him.

She succeeded.

“Where did you learn to do that?”

“The streets. People learn a lot of things when they are desperate to do something. I wanted revenge.”

They were both short of breath.

“Did you get it?”

“Yes.”

She left it at that.

“I've to go now.Thank you for the knife.”

***

The dinner had gone well. Jean had been seated beside Jeremy. Jean couldn't speak but the silence wasn't heavy. It was the kind of silence which came upon family dinners among people who knew each other well. It warmed Jeremy’s heart to think of Jean as a part of his family.

He thought about the ring which was in his dresser. Jean would be a real part of his family if he said yes. Jeremy’s husband. It struck him that he had never thought of Jean as a husband before. He was distracted the entire dinner. Thinking about the word. _Husbands._ Jeremy and Jean Moreau-Knox.

 

***

Jean had asked Jeremy what they were the night after the dinner.

Lovers? He had written.

_More._

Now Jean couldn't get the thought of more out of his head. It was with him as he worked, as he spoke to his family. As he slept. _More._

 

***

Jeremy seemed to be nervous when he came to visit Jean a few days after the dinner.

***

The ring box was in his pocket. Jeremy had brought a sash too. So that if Jean accepted he could put the ring around his neck. So that it wouldn't come in the way of his knitting.

***

Jean gestured to the ground beside him. Jeremy sat.

 _I would like to talk._ He wrote in the sand.

_Yes?_

***

Jeremy tried to speak. He had had an elaborate speech prepared but it had all vanished.   _Marry me._ The words caught in his throat. Jean was looking at him expectantly. Finally the words came out. Too quickly.

“Marry me.”

He wanted to hide his face in his arms and never look up but he did. Jean was staring at him.

 _Marry you._ He wrote.

“Yes.” Jeremy took Jeans hands in his own.

_Why. Why would you want to marry me?_

***

Jean felt as if he were in a dream. A very good one. The kind of dream that little children dreamt. Precious. Fragile. But the question was out. _Why would Jeremy want to marry Jean._

“Because I love you. I've not known you for as long as I want to. But I would like to.”

***

Jeremy wished that the ground would swallow him whole. This was not coming off like he wanted it to. What he meant was that Jean was the person he would like to spend his life with. He was the person Jeremy would like as a ruler beside him. The person with whom Jeremy would like to wake up with. _Sleep with_. Share a life with.  Jeremy loved everything about Jean. His smiles and his touches. Everything.

_I love you too._

Jeremy felt like crying. He leaned into Jean to kiss him. But Jean didn't respond.

_I can’t marry you._

He had tears in his eyes. The sting of rejection was worse than Jeremy had ever thought it could be.

 _Jeremy._ Jean wrote on the ground.

_Nobody would accept me as your husband. You deserve much better than me._

***

“Jean, listen. I don't care what I deserve. What you deserve. I don't care that you don't speak or you knit with your fingers or whatever. I don't care what others will say.  The people whose opinion I actually care about support us. I care about how when I'm with you everything feels right. How you seem to know me. I care about how you and I can sit in silence and still know what the other is thinking. I care about the fact that I love you.”

Jeremy had put his heart out. It was upto Jean now.

****

Jean thought of everything that Jeremy was to him. A benefactor, friend, confidante, lover. He had gained so much ground on the battlefield that was Jean’s heart. Jean didn't know how to deal with it. But here was Jeremy asking for victory. Asking to _marry him._ Telling Jean that he loved him.

 _Yes. Yes._ He wrote.

_***_

They kissed again. And this time they made promises with their touches.

***

Jeremy put a ring on his finger. They were engaged. Jean and Jeremy sat till late into the night kissing. Talking. _Loving_.

Jean sometimes found it difficult to believe that this was his life now. Not just due to the surrealness of the curse but because even though this was hard, it was better than anything he had had before. He had a family. He had a man he loved. Who loved him.

***

Neil went to his and Andrew’s place again. Renee had told him about how he sparred with her. Andrew was not waiting when he went. But Neil remained sitting there till the sunset. He thought about how a part of him had grown attached to that place. He ignored how a part of him had grown attached to Andrew.

Growing up with his father and subsequently running away from his birthplace meant that he had never really gotten attached to places. But when he found his family he got close to the clearing they built their home in. That clearing was something he came to associate with safety, because it was home.

He wondered if that was how Jean felt about Jeremy. His _fiance_ now.

***

Andrew stopped going to the clearing a few days after meeting Renee. It felt wrong to be there alone after spending time with Neil there.

 _He's ruined my place by not being there. Who would have thought I'd let it happen?_ But let it, he had.

Andrew went to the training rooms instead. He practiced till sundown. His mind was often clearer when he did that.

He thought about the swans. The one swan that always sat next to him. The one with the blue eyes strangely familiar. The pond had not frozen over yet and when Andrew reached there some of the swans were still in the water. He circled the pond looking for his swan. _There_.

***

Jean was drinking broth when Andrew came to the rocks. He came in, walking like a man on a mission. Jean watched him circle the pond in a fury. He knew that Andrew won't hurt the swans but he did look pretty intimidating stalking around the pond. He stopped in front of Neil.

***

He had always wondered about the swans eyes. He now understood where the resemblance came from. The swan didn't look afraid of him even as he glowered. Like a certain boy Andrew knew. _What have you done Neil._  

***

Jean went over to Andrew. As Andrew stood looking at Neil as if the swan would give him answers if only he threatened it enough.  

 _He won't be back now._ He wrote.

“I know. I'll come tomorrow.”

Saying so, Andrew left.

***

Andrew went the next day. Neil was waiting as a human this time.

“I’m taking my turn.”

“Are you going to ask me about the swan thing? Because I won't be able to answer your questions on it.”

Andrew thought it was more about _won't answer_ rather than _won't be able to answer_.

“No, that's not my question. You owe me an explanation on that anyways.”

“No I don't.”

“Yes. You do. I could get Jean thrown out of the palace for illegal harbouring of a mouthy swan man.”

“You wouldn't do that.” He was right but he sounded so sure. Andrew wanted to be contrary just to rattle him.

“Fine. Ask your question.”

“Why did you not come back?”

***

Neil had been avoiding asking this question to himself. _Why did he not come back._ He told himself that it was because he was concerned about his secret coming out. But that wasn't true. Even now, after he had been found out, he still wanted to run. That was in his very bones. Running. He ran from anything that made him uncomfortable now. Just because he could. And Andrew made him uncomfortable.

“I didn't come back because I'm used to running. Not having people waiting for me. It started with it when I first escaped and it has gone on.”  It wasn't the complete answer but Neil himself didn't know what that was so this would have to suffice.

“Now, why are you a swan?”

“It's a long story. In the beginning I was a human. Then I drank soup. Now I'm a swan. That's the easiest way to explain it. Just throw in some curses and eternal love and what not, wherever you want and you'll get the story.”

***

Andrew eventually got Neil to speak whatever he could. Apparently he had not been lying about being unable to speak.

“So all the other swans are human too. And they are your family. Moreau is your brother and he is trying to break the curse soupman cast.” Neil had tried telling him who the soupman was. But the curse prevented him from even throwing hints. All Neil managed to convey was that the soupman was some choice words and he conveyed it well. Andrew was impressed. He then turned back into a swan. This time in front of Andrew. The transformation happened from limb to limb. Beginning from his neck and ending with his hands.

***

Andrew sat with Neil after he turned back into a swan. It had been surreal, watching the transformation. He wondered who the soupman was. _Soupman._ It was a ridiculous name.

***

They continued exchanging truths. Neil showed him his scarred back. Andrew showed Neil his hands. Neil told Andrew about how butchers’ knives still scared him. Andrew told him about why he didn't like to be touched. They became closer. Not friends. Neither of them ever made friends but companions.

Andrew realised that he could trust Neil to hold him up. The realisation was terrifying. He had never thought that there would be someone like that for him. As a child he had heard of people who loved each other, he didn't know if he was capable of it. It apparently called for a lot which he could never give. He thought that he had become incapable of emotions. But Neil made him feel things. Things better than what he felt while looking down from the tallest tower in the palace. He didn't know what that meant. Neil also made Andrew want to kiss him. Andrew did know what that meant. Desire disgusted him sometimes. But not what he had for Neil. Neil wasn't interested though. Andrew had held several talks with himself after the evening Neil conveyed that.

***

_“I don't understand how people want to do things to each other.”_

_“You have to be clearer with what you mean.” He had said. Even though he knew exactly what Neil was trying to say._

_“I've never wanted to kiss someone. Or wanted to be married.”_

_Andrew wasn't sure if he had masked his disappointment well enough._

_“Andrew, is it unnatural to not see the appeal?”_

_“Unusual. But not unnatural.” Then again nothing had been usual about Neil._

_***_

Jean went to dinner with Jeremy when they announced their engagement to Rehman and Razia. Jean had been having the irrational thought that they might change their minds about him. But it went well. They accepted him as their nephew’s fiance.

***

Later that night he finished the third jacket.

***

The next day heraldsmen went out to proclaim the engagement.

***

Katy thought that the Prince was a very handsome man. Her husband thought that too. And all the girls in the kitchen agreed. Most of the men did too. If there was something Katy enjoyed about her work then it was betting with the other servants about whom the price would marry. First it had been Lady Alvarez, then Lady Katelyn, then the man the Prince courted, Lord Finnigan. After that the bets had shifted and divided a lot and had once even included Sir Minyard but after the prince brought home the man with the swans the pool had swung considerably in his favor. And now there was no pool. Katy would miss that part of her job. But her mother would probably be relieved that the young ones stopped their immoral _fun._

Katy was happy for the prince he was clearly in love with the man. But a lot of people wondered how he had managed to bewitch the prince when so many had tried and failed.

***

Tetsuji knew it was time to strike. Jean had started coming in the palace more often. It would be easy to direct blame towards him. The public was dissatisfied with the news of Jeremy marrying a commoner from another land. The rumors flew in the kitchens and grounds easily. He just had to direct them.

 

>   
> 


	4. Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whoo! The end at last. .
> 
> Expect a stake, humans who remain humans, Riko Moriyama getting bitten on his arse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I was supposed to have updayed two days ago but school started and I honestly forgot. I'm doing bio homework right now.

PART FOUR

 

Neil asked Andrew to come meet his family. Andrew got into the hut before Neil became human. Jean was knitting havung nothing to say to him, Andrew sat at one end of the room and waited. Some of the swans came near him cozying up on his legs for the warmth. Jean looked amused but his self preservation instincts must have been good because he didn't say anything. When the time came, the swans all left him and went a little farther from each other. Andrew watched as they became human. He had seen this process in reverse before on Neil but this was something new entirely. The humans, Neil’s family, all turned to face him.

“This is Andrew. He figured out we were swans and he wanted to meet you.” Neil said. It wasn't entirely true, Andrew had no opinions on meeting Neil’s family but Neil did and Andrew just agreed to make him happy.

“Andrew.” Renee smiled at him. He nodded back.

“You've met Renee. This is Kevin.” He said gesturing towards a man who was scowling at Neil. Kevin didn't say anything to Andrew. Except scowl more. His lips seemed to have mastered the art of scowling.

“These are Dan and Matt and that is Nicky.”

Dan and Matt smiled at him while Nicky said something to Neil in his ear which made the boy elbow him in his stomach.

Andrew had nodded at each one of them not knowing what else to do.

***

Kevin took Neil aside as soon as he finished with the introductions.

“You do realise that this could get us all killed? You've let him in on our secret.”

“I trust Andrew. And I didn't let him on on anything. He guessed. He isn't dimwitted you know. Quite the contrary.”

“But why bring him here?”

Nicky had left Andrew to Renee and joined in on their conversation.

“He's good looking, Kev! Our Neil has finally learnt to appreciate beauty. He is even in Neil’s height range.”

Nicky had already made that joke to Neil.

“It's not that.” Neil hated his and Andrew’s relationship being misinterpreted and everyone seemed to do that.

“We know.”

***

Andrew did know if Neil’s brothers were being intentionally loud or if they just had never learnt subtlety.

Renee standing beside him seemed to be thinking the same thing as she called out to the group, “We can hear you, you know?”

Neil blushed while Nicky just grinned.

But they did tone down their voices after that.

“Can we go outside? I think that I need to take a walk.” Renee asked.

They went out. They walked in silence for sometime before Renee spoke, “Neil’s never made friends before.”

Andrew wondered where she was going with the talk, “He has mentioned that.”

“He's not had a lover either.”

 _Oh_.

“Yes. He said that too.”

“Andrew, I've noticed how you look at him. Don't think that I don't recognise the look.” Andrew had thought that his mask was a good one. But maybe it was too good to be real.  

“How would you recognise it?” He asked.

“I've felt like that too.”

“Hopeless?”

“It's not hopeless.”

“He's not interested in any gender. Seems pretty hopeless to me. I won't do anything with him that he doesn't want.”

Renee smiled at that. “I know that. But you never know unless you try. Neil likes you a lot more than you think.”

“Not in the way I want him to.” _Not in the way I want him._

“Whatever you do, good luck.”

She then turned into a swan.

_Damn these people and the curse._

_***_

“Has Jean ever talked about his family?” Andrew asked Jeremy one day as they went riding.

“No.”

“Has he mentioned why he likes his swans so much then?”

“He said that the swans were memories of people he loved.”

Andrew was acting strangely asking a lot of questions about Jean.

“Why do you want to know?” Jeremy asked.

“Isn't it strange that he cares so much about his swans?”

“I don't think so. No.”

***

Andrew was getting frustrated with Jeremy. He should have guessed by now that that the swans were all wrong. Andrew had been throwing hints. As much as he could have. As soon as he started to mention anything close to answers about Jean his mouth stuck. Kevin had called it ‘the Non-disclosure Clause of the curse’ one evening when the wine Andrew bought had loosened him a little and he deemed to talk to Andrew.

Jeremy didn't guess though. Andrew sometimes wondered how he survived. _By picking up and helping the most bedraggled criminals._

Andrew then set about looking for the Soupman. Jean told him he had been a guard in Castle Evermore and that the curse was cast in jealousy.  He tried to think up someone who might be jealous of Jean enough to take this measure but due to his limited knowledge of the mysterious neighbouring kingdom, he came up blank.

***

“I always wanted to be married in the spring.” Jeremy told Jean one evening. Jean was cutting the nettle to begin the threads for another jacket it was difficult work.The nettle bark felt harder to split into two when it was so cold outside. But Jeremy was a welcome distraction from the pain the nettle brought about. _A spring wedding._ Jean could almost not believe that they were actually getting married. He wondered what King Ichirou would say to this. He shivered.

***

Jeremy didn't know how to broach the subject with Jean. But winter was getting colder. Both Jean and his swans would be better off in the palace where it was warmer _and_ _Jeremy was closer._ But Jean shivered. “I remember you said no before but I would like to ask you to come live in the palace again. The swans can come too, we'll make a room for them.” Jean stopped what he was doing.

 _A room for the swans?_ He wrote.

“Yes. We'll remove the furniture and put in water vessels.”

Jeremy has given this a lot of thought. Even talked it over with his Aunt and Uncle.

“In some time it'll become too hard to live inside. The food won't be able to be delivered and the pond will freeze over. I think it would be for the better if you came in.”

Abdul Rehman had taught him to never play all his cards at once while making arguments. But Jean made him forget that.

_Alright. I'll come if you won't post guards outside the swans’ room._

***

The swans lodgings were right beside his and could be accessed with a door. There were bathtubs in the room filled with water for the swans. Lettuce lay randomly on the ground. But best of all there were no guards outside. Which meant that the worry about being found out was not as much as before.

***

Jean coming in the palace meant having him over for every meal. Being able to go visit him whenever he wanted. Jeremy felt elated about that. But having Jean in the palace also meant having him meet the council members and the nobility. His uncle had organised a meeting for Jean with the court and though it had gone well Jeremy could tell that Jean was a bit disgruntled by the court. The council didn't approve of Jeremy’s choice. Several of them had daughters or sons they wanted to see married to him but they had no choice in who he married ultimately.

Jean being in the palace meant him getting closer to his uncle and aunt. A ritual had  developed where Jean spent his evenings with Jeremy and Razia and mornings with Rehman. They ate together at mealtimes. Jean must have gathered enough childhood tales of Jeremy to bribe him for years to come in the past four weeks.

Jean learnt of administration from Jeremy’s. He was efficient and  a quick learner. Rehman was pleased.

***

Jean had less time to work on the knitting now. He devoted hours to it daily but now it wasn't the _only_ thing which mattered. He was getting along well with the fourth jacket but the problem was in the supply of the nettle. It had looked large when he had first started but it was dwindling too quickly for Jean’s liking. And snowstorms had started outside. It would be impossible to collect more nettle. He wasn't able to finish the fourth jacket when all the nettle ran out halfway through winter. He apologised to his family each day.  It had led to a lot of conversations.

_“You deserve a rest Jean it's alright.”_

_This is my fault._

_“No it's not. Jean. Stop blaming yourself. Riko did it and it’s his fault.”_

_I could have gathered more nettles._

_“You did your best. We've got more than enough time.”_

Despite his family's reassurances he blamed himself.

***

“So Jean tell us about the wedding. What have you planned by now?” Nicky asked one evening.The entire family planned to distract Jean.

_There are people for that here. My choices only weigh in so much._

“We've noticed.” Matt said looking at Jean’s clothes. Jeremy’s friends had taken over the duty of dressing Jean ever since he had asked for their help for his presentation to the court. And Jean now wore clothes ‘suited to his rank’ _._

_Well the wedding preparations are coming along well or so Alvarez tells me. They've finally decided upon a menu. I'll probably become a dough ball if the cooks continue to feed me at this rate._

Jean had been very thin when he had first come into the hut with Kevin. His ribs were painfully obvious, Matt remembered. He and Dan had asked him to stay for sometime if only so that they could feed him and they had stayed on. He and Dan had found the family they had been unable to make.

_Where's Andrew taken Neil?_

“A tower apparently.” Kevin said.

“Andrew is smitten with Neil. Do you think Neil knows it?” Dan asked.

_No. I don't think he does._

Their talk dissolved into gossip about Neil and Andrew after that.

 

***

The tower was another place of solace for Andrew. Where he went to make himself go to _feel_ even if the feeling was fear, it was better than nothing. He didn't know why he was doing this to himself, bringing Neil to it. _Here. I'm opening up to you. Showing you what I'm like when I’m honest. Take a hint._

If Neil left after Jean broke the curse then Andrew would only have memories of him to live on. _Would I seek other places? Would I live on those memories?_

***

“Is it my turn in the game?” Neil asked as they walked to the tower.

“Yes.”

“What do you think about Jeremy marrying Jean? Aren't you worried or something?”

“Are you trying to get me worried?”

“No. But-”

“See Neil, I tried to convince Jeremy to let go of your brother before he went and fell in love. But it didn't work.  Now it would be futile. They're both too far gone. Besides, Jean is tolerable, better than all of Jeremy's other suitors .”

“You like him?” Neil felt a pang of jealousy. He'd asked Andrew what he thought of him once ‘ _I hate you.’_ Andrew had replied.

“Not as much as I hate you.” Was Andrew’s answer. It didn't make sense but Neil accepted what he received.

They climbed on the tower’s stairs.

As they reached the top Neil turned back into a swan.

**

Andrew had forgotten about the spell. He carried the swan Neil back in his arms.

“Here. Your brother.” He said putting Neil on the ground in front of Jean. He had not been lying when he told Neil that Jean was tolerable. He approved of Jean as the person whom Jeremy would marry.

“Jeremy is set on marrying you.” He told Jean.

Jean nodded.

“I think I don't need to state that if anything happens to him then the entire kingdom will have your head on a pike, do I?” It was the truth. The kingdom was extremely protective of their royalty.

 _No._ Jean wrote in his notebook. _Sara, Laila and your twin have all said it and several people have already implied it._

***

Jean visited Razia every evening with Jeremy but Jeremy had been busy that day. Jean still went. Razia was a repository of knowledge about the court dynamics and etiquette which King Abdul Rehman neglected to teach him.

She also taught him a lot about what marriage was like. Dan said it reminded her of how Matt's mother had talked to her about Matt. It was a rite of passage apparently. _If you get along with the mother in law you lean all you can about their child and marriage from them._

Razia had told a lot to Jean about how his marriage was never going to be perfect. How he and Jermey would potentially get into dozens of arguments. How some days he would have regrets. But she had also told him about the boundless love which was inside Jeremy. Jean would always be grateful to be the recipient of that love.

***

Jeremy had had talks about marriage,married life and the duties he would have ever since he had turned fourteen but now was the first time he found himself listening.

Everything felt so fairytale perfect these days. Days with Jean. Their wedding coming up. Happiness was in everything.

***

The winter melted into spring. The first day that the snow let off, Jean went to the grounds to collect nettle to resume his work. The nettle was still wet and easier to collect. He collected enough that he would be able to finish the fourth jacket with.

***

Jeremy sat with Jean. He was back to knitting again. He wondered if he should buy Jean knitting needles. But Jean had said that he needed to do this by hand. Jeremy watched him work for quite a long time.

“Would you like to go for a walk?” He asked.

_I’ll just finish this round and then?_

_“_ Alright.”

They went to the grounds to the pond and even though the ground was still full of the dirty snow, it was beautiful outside. “Where would you like to marry?” Jeremy asked Jean. He watched Jean point towards the pond. “Alright then.”

They went inside later after visiting their old shelter. As they stepped inside his rooms Jean was thankful that his family was still in swan form and thus unable to see the all the marks on his neck or his swollen lips.

***

It was too easy to put the potion in Razia’s water.

***

Rehman woke to the sound of coughing from Razia. It was midnight and as he brought her a glass of water he noticed how she was shivering.

She wasn't able to sleep for the rest of the night. She tossed and turned in the bed looking for comfort. She put on blankets and pushed them back. Rehman lay awake with her. The next morning before sunrise when they roze for _namaaz_ he could feel her burning.

He had Dobson sent for. She was the best physician of the court.

“It's probably the weather changing.” Razia protested against seeing a doctor. But she only got unreasonable when she was unwell. So Rehman was worried.

Dobson came as soon as she could and as the sun rose she checked Razia.

“Did you eat anything out of the usual?”

“No.”

She contemplated for some time. “I can't recognize this fever. But a few days of bed rest should be good.”

She asked Razia to drink as much water as she could and left after some diet instructions for the kitchens.

***

Jeremy had been too young to know all the details of his parents’ deaths but he knew enough to piece together the parallels between theirs and Razia’s illness.

He was like a ghost the entire day. Never once leaving Razia’s bedside with Rehman.

She had fallen asleep after drinking a tincture which Dobson had given her.

***

Jean worked in his rooms in silence. Both Jeremy and Rehman were in Razia’s room. She was asleep. He didn't want to disturb them in their grief. When Jeremy would come to him, he would be there to wipe his tears. Sit up at nights with him. He would be there to make sure he ate, he lived but for now he would let the family be together. _My parents fell from the same thing she has._  The news was being kept as quiet as possible. All the prayers directed towards hopes that it was something similar but not the same.

***

Razia had nightmares in her sleep. She dreamt of losing everything she held dear. Losing her husband. Her nephew. Losing all the people whom she had built friendships with. Losing the kingdom she and Abdul had worked so hard to build up.

She woke in cold sweat. He was right there beside her when she woke.

_Janu. It's alright. I'm here._

Janu- his endearment for her-calmed her down. She was alright. She would be fine.

***

She got better over the next few days. Her fever subsided. She ate food. Everyone in the palace let out a breath  which they didn't know they had held.

***

The wedding planning picked up pace after that. Jeremy and Jean were sometimes consulted.Jean continued working on the knitting. He was almost done with the fourth jacket one evening when Razia called him into her rooms. He had gone with Jeremy before in the afternoon. This was the first time she had called him to come alone.

**

Razia watched Jena come in. He was a graceful person, always polite. And he lived her nephew. She saw that in every look and every touch they shared. She was grateful everyday that Jeremy had found him.

“Jeremy is a son to me.” She started once he had sat.

“I've raised him from when he was a little boy.” Jean listened to her attentively. He was a good listener. “I've told you so much about his childhood, Jean. But I've never told you how unsure he is about what he deserves. I think you know that.”

He nodded.

**

Jean did. Jeremy was in stark contrast to Jean with his sunshine to Jean thunderclouds. But they were both similar in this respect. No matter how different the circumstances which had caused this to happen, both of them never really had expectations for themselves.They wanted too much from themselves but what they wanted from others would be stifled and hidden. Jeans family worked on this for him and Jeremy's for him but neither had made too much progress.

“ I think you'll both teach each other a lot.”

They already were.

“I want you to promise me that you will take good care of my Jeremy.”

_I promise that I will. I'll give him the world._

***

In the days leading to the wedding Razia became worse. _We could postpone the wedding. No. I'd much rather see it._

_***_

The joy was there. For both Jeremy amd Jean. The joy was muted though. By the illness which had overcome Razia.

***

They wed in a small ceremony. Jean was in a slight daze the entire time. As if by becoming more conscious about his surroundings the dream would dissolve into reality. After the wedding Jean was unable to remember most if it. Only snatches. He didn't remember greeting people. He didn't remember much of the prayers the priest made. But he remembered Rehamn giving Jeremy away. Walking him down the altar. He remembered the breathlessness he had felt on seeing Jeremy in his white robes. He remembered the proud look on Jeremy’s family's faces. The swans in a small corner. Jeremy’s hands in his as they put the rings on each other.  

_I do. Jean had written._

_And_ _do you Prince Jeremy Charlie Knox take Jean Moreau as your lawfully wedded husband to have and hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer for poorer in sickness and health until death do us part?_

“I do.”

Husbands.

They had kissed.

 _I introduce you to_ _Their Highnesses Prince Jeremy and Jean Moreau-Knox._

***

Razia had watched her nephew become his own man through the years. She had prayed that he marry someone who saw what he was worth. Cherished him. Even with the pain throbbing in her temples she sent up grateful prayers.

“Your parents would have been so proud of you today Jeremy.” Abdul told him. His eyes were misty.

***

Living with Jean in his childhood rooms was everything Jeremy could have expected it to be. Not just the nights. But the days when Jeremy came inside to Jean. The mornings they woke up to each other. The  life they began to build. Jeremy and Jean grew accustomed to each other's routines.

***

“Her illness is almost like some other being controls it, isn't it?” Tetsuji told Lord Finniston as they took a walk together. “I'm not sure I understand.”

“Her illness conveniently lessened at time of the wedding. Otherwise that strange swan man would never have married our Prince.”

“Hmm..”

“Why do you think he knits so much?”

“I don't know.”

“No one does. But I'm sure he has his reasons.”

“Of course.”

“In my village there was this witch. She spent up her soul making up spells. She couldn't speak.”

“Lord Tetsuji are you suggesting that the Prince consort is a witch? Because that is a crime.”

“No. Of course I'm not. But he sure has the royal family enchanted.” He laughed.

“Yes. That he has.”

***

Abdul Rahman heard what the Lord said about Tetsuji’s suspicions regarding Jeremy's husband. When Jeremy had announced his engagement the people who had seen them together understood. But a lot of the subjects didn't. He knew that Jean wasn't going to get accepted by all the people anytime soon, Razia hadn't been either. But he also knew that Tetsuji spreading rumours was going to make it even more difficult. He never remembered why exactly he had placed Tetsuji on the council.

He called the man to him.

***

“Lord Tetsuji. I'm afraid I've given you a lot of leeway. Too much. It seems. I will not tolerate any slander of any member of my family from anyone and you should do well to remember that.”

Tetsuji should have known that Finniston would go behind his back. He would have to slip in another befuddlement potion in the king’s water.  He remembered the thrill he had got when he did it the first time. When he managed to convince Abdul that he was a worthy candidate for the council. Many things had gotten old in his life but this thrill hadn't.

***

Abdul Rahman felt confused after his talk with the minister. What was it about? Why was he feeling so angry? He calmed himself down and left for his wife's room. Razia’s condition had deteriorated after the wedding.

He met Jeremy and Jean inside. They sat at her bedside. Jeremy talking in hushed tones to Jean as he worked on knitting. Razia was asleep. As he came in Jean stood.

 _I'll let you have some private time._ He wrote to him. “It's fine. You're a part of our family now.”

Jean stayed.

**

Andrew took swan Neil to the top of the tower almost every evening now. They sat there. Trading stories, secrets. Andrew hadn't known it was possible to feel so close to someone. To feel so much for someone.

“The best part of it was that Kevin actually got injured--” Neil cut off mid story.

“Andrew?”

“I’m listening.”

“What did I say about Nicky?”

Andrew was thankful that he remembered. Neil sometimes made him stupid. _”Nicky is so well intending when he gets you to meet people that he makes you feel almost guilty but not quite.”_ He said.

“I said that yesterday, ‘Drew. Admit it. You are distracted.” Neil had taken to calling him Drew and it did things to Andrew.

“I concede. But only because you're annoying.” He rolled his eyes.

***

Neil laughed. He loved teasing Andrew, getting small reactions out of him. “What were you thinking?”

Andrew didn't answer. He just moved closer to Neil. Neil was only surprised a little more than Andrew when his hand came to rest behind Neil’s neck.

“That I want to kiss you.” It was a surprise to Neil. _I hate you._ He had said. But he was feeling bold.

“Then kiss me.”

Andrew did. He kissed like he was drowning and Neil was air?

They broke apart. Too soon. But then Neil put his mouth on Andrew’s neck.

They stopped only when instead of Neil’s lips. A swan was there on his neck.

**

Jean finished his fourth jacket in the evening as he and Jeremy sat together. Jeremy was distant the past few days. Razia’s illness and his Uncle's Subsequent distraction meant that Jeremy took up a lot of new duties. He was worried too.

_I am there if you need anything. Alright?_

_I know._

They were married but it felt wrong when there was so much anxiety about them. Not Jeremy. Jeremy was not wrong. Jean didn't regret anything. But it felt wrong to be like couples were.

His family sat through many evenings of his trying to explain this on his notebook. Crossing and  cutting words. It was evenings like this when he wished he could speak. When he felt as if his throat was going to close up forever if he didn't let out a word. But he didn't.

***

Katy cried many tears when she heard about how the Queen wasn't waking up. The fact that she was still breathing was like a thin thread which kept the kingdom from falling.

But the talk had reached the taverns. _How long is she going to not eat?_ People talked in hushed tones. The firewood which the queen often came to give out herself was brought by guards this time.

 _There was a man today in the bar. Her cousin spoke one evening he said that he lived in the palace. ‘He said that someone had cursed the Queen. Is it true that The Prince’s husband visit her?’_ He asked her. ‘ _Yes. He comes to her with Prince Jeremy every evening.’_

_‘Do you think he is the one who has cursed her?’_

She had denied his words. But they had taken root in her.

***

“I kissed him.” Neil told Renee and essentially his entire family one evening. “And?” She prompted. “I liked it. I think I want to do it again.” Neil looked to Jean as if asking for his permission. Renee smiled at him. Neil could see that she was happy for him, but there was some pain in her smile too.

Jean was working on splitting the barks again, he was one the fifth jacket. _Soon. Soon we'll be done. You will be able to go home._ The truth was, Neil didn't want to leave Andrew. He had grown fond of him, _of what they were,_ and leaving would mean losing it. Jean would be staying back with his husband. _If he still wants me._ He had said.

***

“Who would stand to gain if the queen died?” Tetsuji asked Yoshi, one of his guards. He never engaged in conversation with those men but he needed this.

“No one. My lord. If she died then we would all be at a loss.”

“No. Anyone who ever loved her would be at a loss. You, I, His Majesty and his nephew would be at a loss. But does the Consort even like the queen?”

“I—”

“Ever since he came things have been going wrong. He would stand to gain from all this.”

Tetsuji felt satisfied as he watched the comprehension finally dawning on the stupid soldier’s face.

“So his knitting—”

“Yes.”

***

Jean wondered what he had done wrong when the kitchen girls flinched when he smiled at them. The guards were distant to him. Jeremy was working in the cabinet and so Jean had no source of information till Andrew came to see Neil in the evening.

_What is going on?_

“What?”

_People seem to be scared of me._

_***_

Andrew had always thought that people being scared of him was  a good thing. But he understood how for a person whose first role was to win hearts, it might not be.

“I'll see what I can find out.”

Andrew knew why Jean didn't speak to Jeremy. He wouldn't be able to.

***

The palace guards gossiped worse than any housewife could. Andrew learnt what the rumours flying about Jean were without putting in too much effort. _He's poisoning the Queen. He's a witch._

“I think you should pretend to fall ill for a few days. Lie low and not visit the Queen.”

Jean took his advice.

***

Jeremy was tired. The meetings were dreary and endless on the good days, now that his brain was perpetually worried they were somehow worse. He felt as if his soul was being sucked out of him. His Aunt was not getting better. And even Jean had caught a cold.

“Are you better now?” Jeremy asked one evening as he came to visit his husband. _Much._ He wrote.

“Would you like to take a walk outside?”

Jean smiled and nodded.

***

They went out. Holding hands. The walks were beautiful. Jeremy didn't speak anything. Jean’s perpetual silence somehow calmed down his desire to complain. Jeremy watched Jean take in everything through eager eyes.

“This is the first tree which I ever climbed.”

Jean tilted his head as if asking for the story behind what Jeremy said. He was scarily perceptive sometimes.

“So, I had lessons in arithmetic. My nurse had taken me out before them. I didn't want to attend so as soon as her back was turned I climbed up this tree and sat between two branches..”

Jean raised his eyebrow.

_There is more to this tale. Isn't there?_

_“_ She looked for me. But couldn't guess where I was I felt so proud of myself for escaping. The thing is, I was tiny at seven but apparently not tiny enough the branch snapped and I fell two feet from my

nurse. Broke my arm.”

_Bruised your pride?_

Jeremy could hear Jean’s laughter in his writing. He wondered what it would have been like. What Jean’s voice would have been like.

***

Her Majesty was not recovering. Katy remembered hearing hushed stories about the King’s brother suffering though the same thing. _Witchery_ she had heard. There had been attacks then, on people suspected of practicing black magic. People were often too eager to lay the blame somewhere, _anywhere_. This time the Prince’s husband was being accused. Not directly. But anyone with ears could hear the insinuations.

***

“I'm worried about Jean.” Jeremy told Abdul one evening as they sat in his wifes rooms. “Worried about the talk?” Rehman might have been holed up with his wife but he still received intelligence from many sources. “Yes. I'm afraid someone might try to hurt him. But he has refused guards outside his rooms. What should I do?”

Rehman hadn't known that. “Why did he refuse?”

“I don't know. He said he couldn't tell.” “What has he said about the rumors?”

“I haven't asked. I keep putting the conversation off.”

“Talk to him, Jer. It won't work out unless you communicate.”

***

Jean and Jeremy were outside walking again when Jeremy finally asked Jean.

_You're worried that I'm a witch?_

“I'm worried that people will try to hurt you because they think you're one. I trust you and everything you've told me about being unable to tell me why you're doing what you are.”

_But?_

“But I’d like to have a guard around you. Please.”

***

_How about a  guard everytime I go outside to the pond? Not when I'm inside._

That would appease Jeremy. His family would have to be more careful but they would manage.

 _“_ Alright.”

***

_Dear nephew,_

_Do you think you'll be able to ride to the border villages? Moreau will be there. I'll let you light the stake._

_Your Uncle._

_***_

Jean finished the fifth jacket one evening sitting by the pond. His family was in the water while his guards  stood some ways off. There was only one jacket left. He put aside the completed one and began collecting the nettle for the last jacket. He distracted himself from the sting by thinking of all the things which would change when he was finally free to speak. He thought about how he would introduce his family to Jeremy. _These are my swans. The people who saved me before I met you._ He would say.

***

Razia was growing thinner. The physicists had been forcefully putting medicines in her but soon it would be to no avail if she didn't wake up soon, starvation would kill her. Jeremy started having nightmares, he would wake up in the middle of the night screaming or crying. Jean was always there beside him. To hold him. To comfort him.

***

Jean was working on the last jacket one evening when Kevin came and sat with him. “It is halfway done already?”

Jean put the jacket aside. He hadn't talked properly with his friend in very long. The problem about writing on paper was that it felt too permanent. You had to think twice before putting anything on it and once it was down it felt irrevocable. Kevin always used paper to sort through his thoughts. He missed speaking. The easy affection that could be shared by exchanging pet names. _Soon._ He thought.

_Yes. I actually do know how to do this now._

“I know. Do you think of what will happen after?”

_Too much._

It was constantly on his mind. Staying without his family or even Jeremy making him leave. Rationally he knew that it wouldn't happen, Jeremy wouldn't blame him but what would he say about the politics involved? Jean had once worked for Ichirou after all. Would Jean tell him about how it was Riko who had cursed him?

“You'll be staying.”

_Yes. If he has me._

“He will. We were talking about how we might build a home nearby.”

Jean smiled. Having his family near him would make things much easier.

***

Jeremy was busy the entire day. The readings of the evening would apparently go on well into the night.

_I'll disturb Jean when I get in._

***

Jean left for the pond when he saw that the nettle he had picked wouldn't be enough. His guards followed him. One of them was new as had Browning had to go home as his mother had fallen ill.

***

The dungeon were a cold place. The sun didn't reach there. When they had held prisoners those men and women developed pasty white skin in a matter of days. Tetsuji worked in the dungeons sometimes. For potions and spells which required cooler temperatures.

Tetsuji had known that these dungeons would be the perfect place to hide things. _Or people._

 

***

It was not easy to overpower the consort. Even though he couldn't scream for help, even with two men against him, he fought. And he fought well. His hands were blistered, they could barely hold the sword yet he tightened his grip. But Yoshi and Kurt weren't out of practice like he was. They finally managed to put a bag over his head and take him to the dungeons through the passage the master had told them about.

***

Andrew and Neil had gone out. After Neil had turned back Andrew stayed out for a while before taking him in. Things were different for Andrew now. Neil made them different, he made them interesting. He smoked for a while. When he went in Jean hadn't come back. It was unusually late for him.

***

When Jeremy finally got free he went to their rooms.

“Jean I’m—”

The bedroom was empty. Maybe he he was with his swans? Jeremy checked there. The swans were present but there was no sign of Jean. He was never outside at this time, Jeremy went looking anyways. He wasn't to be found.

***

“He's nowhere.”

Jeremy had enlisted the help of anyone and everyone to look for his husband. The gardens, kitchens, rooms and the grounds had all been combed. Jeremy was getting increasingly frantic. Sara watched her friend He was pacing the length of the corridor outside .

***

Jean had been unconscious when he was carried to wherever he was. The cell was dark and drafty a smell of rot prevaded. _The dungeons._ They weren't in use now, Jeremy had told him. The criminals were kept in the prison. _No one would ever think to look here._

There was no nettle with him. The jackets were all in his rooms. He still had to knit one. _I'll fail._

He hated himself for all his carelessness. The sense of safety he had let himself be lulled into.

 _What will my family do?_ He had made an unspoken promise. Broken.

***

Tetsuji walked into the cell Moreau was being kept in.

“Jean Moreau of the Royal Guard of Evermore.I don't think your Master will take too kindly to your running away to marry a Prince. But you don't have to worry about that do you? No one will ever know that you're here.”

Moreau just looked at him with widened eyes. He gestured as if asking for paper. “You can speak. We both know that. There is no need to keep on trying.”

***

 _No need to keep on trying._ Jean kept his mouth shut. He'd not be the one to doom his family.

“I was looking forward to hearing your voice. These dungeons don't carry sound well. Only you and I would have been witness to your screams.”

//

Tetsuji would come back every morning. _Speak and I'll let you go._ He would tell Jean.

_There was a man with him one morning. The man had a dagger. You're allowed to scream.  Even before they were done Jean passed out from the pain. He didn't make a sound. But he was tempted to. Pain had always been a good motivator. That night he had dreamt that he was back in his old house. Except instead of his parents there was a man in a black mask. Instead of bottles of liquor crashing on his back there was a dagger that painted him red._

//

“He's disappeared.” Andrew told the family the next evening. He had had them shifted to the old hut again.

“Somebody has him.” Danielle sounded convinced.

“I know, but we don't know who.”

***

When Jean woke up Tetsuji was there again. He had paper with him. “I need you to write a note to your husband for me. Or more specifically your mother in law needs you to do it if she wants to live through her ‘illness’.”

Jeremy would be devastated if his Aunt died. Jean didn't know if Tetsuji would keep his word. He didn't know if anything he did would have any effect but je had to try.

_Jeremy,_

_I've lied about many things to you ever since we met. I am a runaway. A criminal. You were a shield from the wrath of so many people. I.was committed for the brewing of illegal potions. One of them being what your aunt has drunk. I made you fall in love with me. I made you do a lot of things. You trust too easily. But I’ll be gone by the time this paper reaches you. I'm writing this to thank you. For the protection you gave me. For all the trust. It saved my life. You were amazing._

_Jean._

 

Every word felt like betrayal. Every word was like a stab on Jeremy’s back. Jean couldn't hope to be forgiven for this. But at least Jean did his best.

***

Jeremy saw a note pinned under a rock at their place. A note in Jean's handwriting. Jeremy read through it.

Jean was a witch. Jean had poisoned his Aunt. Jean had _made_ him fall in love. Jeremy’s head swam with all that he learnt.

The fireflies still flew about like they had the first time Jean had come there with him.

_He's gone. I trust too easily. I fell too easily._

Jeremy walked out.

***

The last people to have seen Jean would have been his guards. Andrew found homer at his usual post.

“Where were you when the consort left?” He asked the man.

“Home. My Maman had taken ill.”

“You weren't at your post.”

“No. A guard had filled in for me.”

“Who?”

“One of Tetsuji’s Kurt I believe.”

_Tetsuji._

***

 _Kurt_ was in the kitchens having a drink. He had become quite popular the past few days since the Consort job. People kept asking him what had happened. The story grew more and more ludicrous after each retelling but people believed what they wanted.

He felt a hand tapping his shoulder. He turned to see Sir Minyard, The Prince’s advisor and guard dog.

“Come with me.” Kurt went. He was taken into the woods. He kept on his guard Minyard was known for being volatile.

“I've already told the Prince what happened.”

“But we both know that your tale was drivel.”

“So what do you want me to tell you?”

Minyard took hold of his collar.

“I want the truth.” He backed _Kurt  in_ to a tree. And took hold of his neck. Kurt tried to push back get out but his hold was too strong. “Start talking. Now.

Tetsuji would have him killed if he did. “I won't.”

“I've got no use for you then.”

Minyard unsheathed his sword. Spots danced in Kurts vision as the grip around his throat tightened. “He's in the dungeons. The palace dungeons.” The hands eased a little.

“Go on. How many guards does he have?”

“One. Tetsuji trusts no one except him.He wears a black mask and goes by Malcolm.”

***

The man was almost impossible to take down in a fight the guard told him before Andrew took him down with a tranquilizer Aaron had prepared for him. Andrew gaaged him and tied him with ropes to a tree deeper in the wood. No one would go there.

***

Jean waited for something to happen, anything. He felt too weak too walk. The rough sheet that covered him scratched against his wounds. They weren't bleeding but they were far from healed in the past two days. He drifted in and out of sleep. The nightmares were back every time he closed his eyes. Time crawled by.

There was a thud outside. “Moreau. Moreau. _Moreau.”_ someone was hissing. That someone was outside the cell. Jean stood and went to the door. The man outside was Andrew Minyard. Andrew Minyard dressed in the black man's clothes sans the mask. Jean took a step back in horror.

“He's unconscious outside. I'm wearing his clothes.”

Andrew shoved a bag through the cell bars. Jean opened it to see nettle.

“Finish the last jacket.” Jean nodded.

“I'll tell Jeremy.”

 _No._  He shook his head. Tetsuji had the only remedy to cure Razia and he had the potion to cause the illness. If Jeremy had any inkling of what the truth was he would be targeted sooner.

He hoped Andrew understood.

***

It was hard work dragging the man into a new cell. Andrew put on his mask. Even with it and even with the heeled boots he was wearing, he felt too small. He hoped the disguise would hold up. He took post outside the cell.

***

“We'll leave tomorrow at dawn. Prince Riko will be reaching the village by the evening so we'll start the pyre then.” Tetsuji told Malcolm.  He nodded his understanding. Malcolm had never spoken much.

“We should take the swans.” Malcolm suggested.

“Make his family watch him die?” Tetsuji smiled as he contemplated the idea.

“Yes.  You'll gather the birds tonight?”

“Of course.”

They're stupid. They should have escaped. Tetsuji thought. But then again they are birds. They knew nothing.

***

Andrew went to pick up the swans at before sunset. The family was huddled together.

“I found him.” Andrew called by way of a greeting.

_Where is he? Is he alright?_

Andrew answered their questions and then laid out his plan.

Later, he put the jackets in a bag and shepherded the swans to a pen Tetsui had had prepared for them.

***

Jean had never knit so quickly in his life. His fingers flew on the jacket.He knit well past midnight, well past the chime of three from the castle clock tower. He knit into dawn. He was almost done with only a sleeve left when Tetsuji came. Jean put the jacket and enough strings to finish it under his hood.

Andrew came in with Tetsuji. His mask hid who he was. The man had been taller than Andrew but Andrew was wearing heeled shoes, only someone looking for them would notice them as he had covered them with boots and a long cloak.

Jean pretended to sleep.

“Get up.”

Tetsuji came in the cell.  Jean stood up. “Bind him.” Andrew walked forward and put ropes around Jeans hands and ankles. He left Jean’s fingers free.

They walked out of the cell in single file. Tetsuji leading in front of Jean, Andrew behind him.

***

Ichirou knew Riko was behind the disappearance of Moreau. He didn't have proof but his brother's jealousy would be motive enough. He had been having him closely watched for the past few months. Except Riko hadn't done anything. He had been suspiciously silent. But the day before he left for some border village without providing any reason or excuse. Needless to say Ichirou’s spies followed him.

***

Jeremy was not fine. He hurt. His eyes were red. He felt scattered. Jean always held him together. Calmed him down on the bad days. But now when he learnt it was all pretend, he hurt.

He couldn't go see his Aunt due to all the guilt. It was eating him alive.He didn't understand _why_ Jean had done it. He could easily have escaped. Why did he curse a person who had only ever been kind to him? Ruin a kingdom that had only ever welcomed him? Why had he broken the heart of a man who had only ever loved him?

It hurt.

***

Rehman watched his wife and nephew wilt away slowly.

***

 _Fireflies. A dark cave. Whispered I love yous. A notebook of words._ Jean held on to all the good things. He didn't know what was going to happen today.  Whether he would survive. Whether his family would turn back. He didn't know. A thousand possibilities crossed his mind. But as they rode towards a place he didn't know, Jean held on to the good things.

***

Riko had never been well loved by the people. Often he wasn't even respected. But he was a prince. And if he ordered for a stake to be built, the people would do it. There were rumors about who was being burnt.

‘ _Maybe it's the exiled lord, Tetsuji.’_

_‘No. Otherwise King Ichirou would have come.’_

_***_

Jean recognised his kingdom when they rode into it. The village was one of those which he had crossed with his family before they had reached the pond.

His swans were also with them, riding on Andrew’s horse. He had put two large bags on his horse’s sides each with three swans inside it but somewhere along the way Neil had gotten out and was now sat in front of Andrew. There was another bag beside Andrew, it contained the jackets which Jean had knit.

Andrew had told him that he would get the swans to him whatever ever happened. Jean trusted him. Andrew was someone you trusted to keep his promises.

***

Riko reached the home where Tetsuji was staying. Tetsuji had kept Jean in one of  the rooms, a trusted guard outside the door.

“Nephew. How are you faring?”

“Not to well. Brother has been tightening his hold over me. He's worried I'll be trying to usurp him.”

Tetsuji knew that was not the only thing Ichirou worried about. A prince’s lashing out was something which threatened the throne’s stability as a whole.

Tetsuji enjoyed sitting back and watching Riko spoil a lot of things that Kengo and Ichirou had worked to build. And if he helped Riko with it no was any wiser. It was his revenge for being exiled from the Moriyama kingdom and family.

***

The spies Ichirou had put on Riko sat outside. They caught snatches of the conversation but they were experienced enough to piece together the rest. Amd they recognised the man who was with the Prince. Tetsuji Moriyama. He had dared to come back after all.  King Ichirou would be pleased to hear it. Pavlo rode back to inform the king about the development while Lamen remained back.

***

Jean had been working on the sleeves of the last jacket when he heard footsteps outside. He put the jacket under his cloak.

“Moreau.”

Jean looked up to see Riko. He hadn't changed much in the time since Jean had last seen him. He still had the same cruel smile in place. The same air of hatred around him. _He is responsible for all of this._

“It's a good life isn't it? You insult me in front of my brother and I get to see you die, disgraced, in front of an entire village.”

Jean glared at Riko. Riko pulled out a small knife from its sheath and brought it to Jean's cheek. He flicked it so that a shallow gash opened up on Jean's cheek.

“I'll let you be for now.”

***

“It's time.” Riko said.

”I'll go get our witch.” Tetsuji stood and walked to the room where Moreau was kept. Malcolm stationed outside saluted him.

When he opened the door he saw Moreau knitting. The man looked up with wide eyes at Tetsuji.

“Where did you get those nettles?”

There was an interloper amidst the guards. He would have to ask Malcolm to take care of it. Moreau shook his head. He still wasn't speaking. Futile devices really. He wasn't going to get to the swans ever. There would be no happy family for him. No breaking the curse. But Tetsuji rather admired his dedication. _I'll let him keep the nettle._

“I don't mind. They'll burn along with you.”

He hauled up the man.

“Walk.”

They walked. Walked to the gates of the house. The swans were led by Malcolm. Riko Moriyama walking along him. He had a large unlit torch in one hand. Moreau still knit the jacket.

***

Jean was led to a stake erected in the middle of the village square. People had come out to watch. He had been afraid of something like this happening ever since his family was cursed. But now he felt weirdly calm. The sleeve he was working on had only a few rounds left. Jean watched as Andrew came up on the stage to bind his feet to a log behind him.

“Don’t bind his hands. Let him knit. We'll show how he himself will be one to doom to failure the curse which he is weaving.”

Andrew nodded and stepped behind pretending to tighten the ropes there was a soft thunk as he dropped the jackes behind Jean.

He stepped off the platform then.

***

Riko lit the torch which he was to use to light the stake. _Revenge feels good._ He stepped forward and just as he torched the pyre there was a sudden uproar. He turned to see what had happened but before he could spot the source there was a hiss behind him. Followed by a throbbing pain in his bottom. Riko screamed. The swans had escaped.

There was chaos they flew in circles around the post on which Moreau was tied even as the flames started to lick. Around on the wood.

***

Jean bent and untied himself as the flames came close to touching him. He took the jackets from behind him and got closer to the edge of the stake, he threw the first one on a swan. He prayed it would work. And it did. As soon as the Jacket hit the swan it flew downwards and turned into Matt. Jean continued throwing the jackets. Dan, Nicky, Renee, Kevin all came back to their human form. He looked around for Neil. He was farther away and was engaged in conflict with Riko Moriyama. Jean smiled. Some things never changed. Jean jumped off and got as close as he could and hurled the unfinished jacket on Neil. _Please work_.

He started to turn back. His feet changed. His torso, his head, one hand. But not the other. At the end of the transformation his right hand hadn't turned. It was still a wing.

Jean didn't know which of them moved first. But suddenly he was engulfed in a hug with all of his family.

_You did it._

_I said I would._

It felt good. It felt right.

Jean looked at Minyard who was standing some distance off. He had removed his mask. And moved away from Tetsuji. He nodded at them.

 

***

Ichirou hadn't expected the message. And he didn't know why he hadn't. _My brother is in league with the man who betrayed my father. He's working with Tetsuji._ Riko was stupid. He'd just given Ichirou the evidence which he needed.

**

When Ichirou and his convoy reached the square, it was a sight to behold. There was an incensed crowd, a boy with a swan wing, a burning stake and Tetsuji.

He rode into the chaos.

The noise gradually stopped. Even if people had never seen him before, they recognised the crown on his head, they recognised the Royal Guard. People kneeled down. Not Moreau. He bowed. He was the consort of a powerful man, nobility.

Ichirou glanced at Tetsuji as his guards moved to take hold of him. He had prostrated himself on the ground. It wouldn't help him.

“Jean Moreau. A lot has happened since you ran off. Hasn't it?”

“Yes. Your Highness.”

There was a new confidence around him. Something you only got by learning your place in the world.

“You've married the crown prince of Troy.”

“I have.”

Ichirou looked around at the people on the ground. There were people behind Moreau separate from the crowd.The man with swan wings.

“Come with me.” He told Jean.

***

King Ichirou led Jean to an inn in the village, to a room upstairs which was empty except for a table and some chairs. Ichirou took a seat, gesturing for Jean to do the same. It felt wrong to sit in front of a man who had been his King, who was his king still in many ways, as  if they were almost equals. He waited for Ichirou to speak.

“I've got enough witnesses to get both Tetsuji and Riko punished. Much of it is because of you.”

Jean didn't know how much Ichirou actually knew. He hadn't really had a big hand in the situation. But Ichirou could believe what he wanted to.

“You're still in my service though. Moreau. What do you propose should happen?”

“Your Highness, you can't really do anything to me. I may still be under the contract but I am also the spouse of Prince Knox. My statement as a witness will incriminate your brother and Tetsuji and will hold much more value than anything the villagers could say. I'll willingly offer it in exchange for being freed.”

His voice was scratchy. Rough. Unpracticed. But he didn't falter. He sounded daring. His words spoken after so long were bargaining his freedom.

Jean watched the King think.

“Alright. I believe we are done then.”

“Not quite. Tetsuji brewed a potion which caused the Queen to slip into a coma. I would like an antidote for it. ”

“That can be easily arranged.”

He stood to leave.

“I'll hold you to your promise, Moreau.”

“I'll not break it.” He hadn't broken the most important promise after all.

***

Jean’s family had been put in the inn where Ichirou had taken Jean. Andrew had been let off when Moreau had vouched for him. Neil was in the courtyard with his family. Andrew went over to him. He still had a swan wing for a hand. His back was turned to Andrew as he talked with Renee.

“Hey.” Andrew said. His hand hovering just above Neil’s shoulder. Neil turned.

“I was waiting for you.” He smiled.

“You could have come looking for me.” Andrew answered rolling his eyes.

“But you came first.”

Andrew had never engaged in such pointless talk with people. He would stop talking for anyone else. But with Neil it was just endearing. _Endearing._ He was getting too soft.

“That I did. How does it feel to be back?” Andrew asked.

Neil raised his wing to Andrew. “Awkward. But I missed the afternoon sun.”

“Walk?”

“Yes.”

He turned towards Renee. “I'm glad to see you back safe.”

“Thank you for the risk you took Andrew.”

He blushed. “I...of course.”

Neil grinned. “We'll talk later, Renee.”

The back alley they stopped at was empty. “Have you thought about where you will be going now?”

“I don't know. Back to the forest maybe.” Neil looked at Andrew as if he expected him to say something to it. Andrew remained quiet. Stubborn. Neil had become so much to Andrew in the few months they had known each other. He was going back.This was probably nothing to him.

“Andrew.” Neil finally broke the silence. “Ask me to stay and I will.”

“Yes or no, Neil?” He asked instead of replying.

“Yes. Always yes for you.”

Andrew kissed Neil and in between the kisses he whispered. _Stay_ . _Stay. Stay._ He didn't whisper _I love you._ He didn't whisper _You make me feel._ But he would. If he got time.

***

Dan sat with her family. They were all safe now. They had survived. Matt was beside her on the bed. Jean was speaking something to Kevin. It felt good to hear his voice. It felt good to enjoy the time together without the limit of fifteen minutes. It would take time to adjust again. Jean was going back to his husband And Kevin was accompanying him. Neil would probably go back with Andrew. Renee would return to the village.  It would take time to adjust living separately. But they would manage.

***

Jean hated goodbyes, he decided  as they got on the horses that Andrew had got for them, so far the only things he had left behind were things he hated. Things he was glad to escape. But this was different. It was painful.  He'd still have Neil and Kevin but it wouldn't be the same. Some of the sadness also came from the fact that he was still afraid about what Jeremy wa going to think. Jean told himself to believe that Jeremy would trust him. Razia would get better somehow. He told himself to calm down as they rode back to Jeremy’s home.

***

Jeremy and Rehman were in a state meeting together. He wished his advisor was there instead of whatever place he was at. There was noise outside. The guard at the door announced that Jean Moreau had returned with Lord Minyard. He stood up so fast that his chair fell back.

“What is he doing here?”

Jeremy walked out. He was furious. At Jean for leaving. For the note. For coming back.  His uncle followed him. Jean was with Andrew in the main assembly room. Seeing him standing in front of him hurt. But Jeremy saw how unsure Jean himself looked. His face was scarred more than usual.

Jeremy opened his mouth to ask a servant to bring a notebook. So that Jean could explain himself. His presence. His crime. But he didn't. Because Jean spoke.

“Jeremy.”

“So that was a lie too. You _can_ speak.”

Jean looked hurt. _Good. Let him be._

“Give me one reason why you shouldn't be in prison right now.”

“I've come to apologize. And I will leave after that.”

“Apologies will do nothing for my wife. Moreau.” Rehman interjected.

“King Ichirou gave me a cure for her.” Jean's voice was nothing like Jeremy had imagined. And even now when it should be faltering. It wasn't. It was quiet strength. Confidence.

Andrew spoke then. Jeremy had forgotten that he was there. “Knox. Listen to the story.”

Jean began. “When I was a boy I was to be sold into the service of King Ichirou by my mother. But I escaped before I had to go. I escaped to the forest with my friend. There in the forest I found my people.”

“You have a family.” Jeremy asked. He didn't have any idea where Jean was going with the tale.

“Yes. My swans were my family. They had been cursed. By Riko Moriyama. With the help of Lord Tetsuji of this court. He also cursed Queen Razia.”

“You're accusing noble man who has been a part of this court for generations, Moreau. With only your word as proof.”

“I do have proof. Tetsuji is the exiled brother of the Late King Kengo Moriyama. He's currently being held for trial in Evermore for breaching the term as of his exile.He has had you beguiled”

Jean's word made sense to Jeremy a most had always been there around Tetsuji. Blurry lines in his history and behavior. Something which everyone had always brushed off.

“Where are your swans then?”

“My family is human again.”

***

Jean watched the faces of each person who was there go from anger to disbelief to confusion and finally trust. He laid bare all the events since his family had been turned and some before. He talked about the dungeons and the stake, the curse about Andrew’s involvement and the vow of silence.

Kevin and Neil who were waiting in the stables were brought in. It was seeing Neil and his wing that finally convinced Rehman.

Then he was led to guest rooms in the place. With Kevin and Neil. Andrew followed. He had kept up a calm face throughout the trial but as soon as he got into the bathroom. He sat with his back against the door and broke down.

He knew he was believed. He knew that he was being honored by these rooms. But that didn't negate the fact that the guest rooms were impersonal.Not the place that he and Jeremy had lived their married lives in.The fact that Jeremy hadn't spoken to him since the trial or hadn't even tried to catch his eye.

There was a knock outside. Jean didn't want to open the door but it was probably Kevin and he was nothing if not persistent, it was always better to give in first instead of making a thousand arguments. But when he opened the door he was engulfed in a hug. A familiar hug. A familiar body Jeremy was shaking against him. They stood like that for a while. Till Jeremy took a step back. He took hold of Jean’s hands.

“I didn't know what to believe–” Jeremy said at last. “I wish you could have trusted me with this.”

“Me too. But I wasn't able to write it. And I was afraid that my family would be stuck if I intentionally showed them to you.”

Jeremy smiled.

“Speaking of your family—”

“You met Kevin.”

“And Neil. Kevin threatened with a pocket knife. Neil with Andrew.”

“Threatened you?”

“Against hurting you. I think this was the shovel talk that I had missed before our marriage.”

To someone who didn't know Jeremy the reference to their marriage would sound nonchalant but Jean heard the questions in his voice.

 _What of our marriage?_ And the bigger one _is it still love if I didn't know anything?_ Jean wanted to say _Yes._ That Jeremy knew him. But that would not be a truth.

What they had was a bond. Something which would strengthen as they grew closer. And Jean wanted to do that.

***

Andrew and Neil were at the tower again. Similar to what they were like before. Except this time they weren't afraid of time running out. They were talking.

“How much do you remember about the incident?” Andrew asked.

“Not too much. Why?”

“You bit Riko on his ass.”

“I don't know if I should be proud or what.”

“Whatever. I now have a something to tease you about for forever.”

“You're saying this will last that long.”

“I'll throw you down the tower.”

“I'll drag you down with me.”

“Shut up Neil.”

“Make me.”

He did.

***

Razia woke up slowly. She was shivering everything was too hot and too cold. She was hungry. Her body ached.

These were her first impressions. Then she noticed the people around her. The doctors standing above her. Her husband sitting beside her. Holding her hand. It wasn't like them to be this demonstrative in front of people. But she needed it right now.

“You're awake.” Abdul had been crying, she noticed.

She saw Jeremy standing a little distance off with his husband.

The physician started checking her heartbeat and pulse. The rest of the day was blurred. Later Abdul would give her the the entire story.  But then she rested.

***

 _‘Wait for me. I'll come tomorrow.’_ were the last words Nicky had spoken to Erik. Needless to say he hadn't. Now outside his door Nicky worried that Erik hadn't waited. But he went inside. And there he was, waiting.

And they would be alright.

***

Renee went to Allison when she returned. And she didn't worry or wait this time again.

***

Kevin still carved wood. He still lived with his best friend. An added advantage was having full access to the Royal Library. His passion only increased. And with resources he would go on to become a veritable scholar.

***

Dan and Matt were back in their hut. It was different now. Without Jean, Kevin and Neil. Renee had gone back to her home she visited occasionally but for now she was focusing on her wedding preparations. Nicky too. So much had changed in all of them in the few months since they had become swans. But one thing that they had all learned was to take chances. With love, with people.  

She and Matt were finding their life again. Changing routines. There was an underlying sadness in all of it. An ‘empty nest,’ is what Abby called it. But she was working it. There were letters and there were visits. They got to know Jean’s husband. She got closer with Renee’s fiancée Allison. Erik and Nicky came over to dinner routinely. Abby and Wymack became a part of their lives.

Kevin once sent a small sculpture to them. It was Jean sitting and knitting with six swans around him. It occupied a place on their dining table.

Neil didn't write a lot to them or anyone. But whenever he did the letter was signed

_From your little brother,_

_Love Neil._

He refused any rumor of him getting engaged to Minyard with gusto and Dan jokingly wrote to him about how scandalous his proceedings were.  

They were still very much a family. Distance did nothing to the fact.

***

Jean still knit sometimes. He made socks for Aaron's twins when they were born in the autumn.  ‘Charlie Andrew Minyard’ and ‘Barbara Jane Minyard’ were both pampered brats according to their uncle but Andrew had once been caught cooing at them in their cribs so his word couldn't be trusted.

***

Sometimes Jeremy felt as if he was rediscovering Jean. Uncovering things about him that he had missed. He was falling everyday a bit more than before.

***

Jean wondered how he was married to the man who was the sun. Once he would have worried about burning. But now he just basked in the warmth.

His story could be told to children.

Mothers and fathers would speak of a lonely child who came across a hut in the woods. They would speak about how he found a family there.

How one day, the family got turned into swans. And how he set out to rescue them. How he met a man who was sunshine and joy.

How he married the man and later broke the curse.

How he had a happily ever after.

The parents wouldn't tell about the bad nights. They wouldn't talk too much about how his family became one. But in the essence his tale would be passed down for generations.

The tale of a man who loved his family.

The tale of Six Swans.


End file.
